Sarah's key by Tatiana de Rosnay - exciting and a little disapointing

 

My Rate: ☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠ (5/10 Skulls)

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Original Title: Sarah's Key

Norwegian Title: Saras nøkkel

Written by: Tatiana de Rosnay

Genre: drama, world war 2

Written for: Adult

Pages: 314
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: June 12, 2007

Published in Norway: 2008

My copy: 2009 (Paperback)
Norwegian Publisher: Bazar Forlag

I read it: April 04 - April 12, 2011
Source: Bought

Challenge(s): 100 Books in a Year

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(Goodreads)

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode

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The movie is now at the cinema and as always, I read the book when it's already made into a movie. I'm always too late when it comes to reading a book before it's already a movie. Oh well ... better late than never and I just have to read the book before I see the movie. So, I'm gonna see the movie sometime in the future. Too bad I watched the trailer while I was reading the book cause then I imagined Kristin Scott Thomas and the other actors instead of creating my own visions of them. So that was a little let down. But I read the book anyway and I don't regret.

Sarah's Key is a book with two stories. One story is about a ten - year - old girl from the 1942 who wakes up in the middle of the night. She and her family gets arrested by the French police. Before she goes she locks her little brother inside their secret closet. She is absolutely sure that she will be back in just a matter of hours and then she will let her brother out. She does that 'cause she doesn't understand really why and where the French Police are taking her and her parents. She promise her brother to get him out of the closet as soon as she get back. The girl and her parents get taken to Vél d'Hiv. They spend days there before they get taken to another place. Sarah gets worried about her brother as the days goes by. She mist find away to get back to him and let him out.

The other story is taking place in 2002 and is about Julia Jarmond. She's a journalist and she gets the job to write about Vél d'Hiv since it's 60 years ago it happened. It's about a time the French people don't talk about. They want to forget it and pretend it never happened. The French people doesn't want to talk about it since it was the French People who arrested the Jews. While working with her article about Vél d'Hiv, Julia comes across about a girl named Sara who was one of the arrested children. While she tries to find things about that girl and her story - Julia begins to think about her own life and her life starts to change in many ways.

I've heard a lot of different things about this book in a pretty long time and I've always been curious about it. And I've heard this is a love/hate book. Some people really loves this book and others thinks it sucks. But I thought. Hey, why not? It won't hurt to give it a try, right? And I discovered that I like this book and somehow don't. It's a bit difficult to explain that for those of you who hasn't read it yet ... There are parts of this book that's very exciting and some parts not.

To be honest I liked Sarah's story much better than Julia's. Sarah is only ten years old but he sounded much more mature and self independent than Julia. Julia, the journalist, I don't know how to explain it but I thought she was too whiny and had problems that couldn't compare to Sarah. Julias problems and life doesn't seem as important as Sarah's problem and life situation. Julia sounded to me like a whiny teenager who were whining about every little thing and it made me frustrated. I just wanted to shake her and ask her to grow up. Make your own decision instead of asking the same questions over and over and over again. Argh! And the other problem I had with Julia was her constant thinking about the language. That she was certain she could speak French very well after living in Paris in several years but still she is whining about that some speaks English to her to make sure she understands what they are saying and she brings up how she hates that. I think that language thing is not relative for the book. It didn't belong there. If Julia felt Paris was her home or not. It sounded it belonged in another book. That thing takes too much place. I think Sarah's story is more important than how much Julia thinks she belongs in Paris or not ...

But all in all, Sarah's key is definitely worth reading despite there are parts in the book that sounds too much chick lit (if you know what I mean!). The book brings up an important subject. A subject which none of us should forget. I've never heard about Vél d'Hiv before. The place where the Jews spent many days before they moved on to another place. But I got interested about it and I want to read and find more about it. And Sarah's key also gave me inspiration to read more fictions based on World War 2, 'cause I've read too little of it. It's an interesting and scary time.

Even though Sarah's key is not my fave, it's still a good read and interesting. You won't regret reading it 'cause it makes a strong impression either you like it or not. And I'm also very curious about the movie. Has anyone seen it?

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