Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay

[goodreads]

Title: Sarah's Key
Author: Tatiana de Rosnay
Genre: ww2
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: Audiobook ~11 hours
Date read: May, 2010

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.

Unfortunately I didn't care much for the narrator (I don't remember her name, but as she was a Danish narrator, that won't really matter to most of you anyway ;) ) as her voice was very, very monotonous. Thankfully the plot more than made up for it!

World War 2 stories have always fascinated me, as they show so much about human nature. This one was especially interesting, as it brought home to me rather forcefully how difficult life was for Jews in other European countries - not just Germany and Poland. I tend to think that most were treated like Danish Jews, and keep forgetting that that's not the case.

Sarah's Key wasn't as devastating as I'd expected, but it was still a heartbreaking story. I liked the way it was written - with parallels to present-day France - as that gave a very nice perspective to the story. But some of the attitudes depicted in the book frustrated and infuriated me - just because it's been 60 years doesn't mean we should forget all about the Holocaust.

Great book, even if it did end up being very different from what I had expected.