Sarah's Key

I both loved and loathed "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay.  Last week I stopped at Chapters looking for a particular book.  While I didn't find what I'd stopped at the store to buy, I noticed "Sarah's Key" and the cover art compelled me to pick up the book and read the back cover.  Just from that, I was already drawn in to the story of a ten-year-old Jewish girl born and raised in Paris.  When I actually started reading the book this week, I couldn't put it down and finished it within 24 hours.

The book opens with Sarah's story (although the reader only learns her name halfway through the book) when the French police pound on her door in the early morning hours of July 16, 1942.  Every other chapter reveals more about what Sarah and her family are going through.  I loved those chapters, although I despised the treatment given to Sarah's family and the other Parisian Jews.

But it was the chapters in between Sarah's story that repelled me even more.  After each chapter about Sarah, the scene shifts to the early 21st century where Julia, an American woman living in Paris, learns of the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup.  Julia's story is strangely intertwined with Sarah's and throughout the chapters devoted to her, Julia strives to find out what happened to a family mysteriously connected to her French husband and in-laws.  Julia's story, in itself, wasn't so bad.  In fact, Julia's story was actually more intriguing than Sarah's, since I could tell very early on what the outcome of Sarah's story would be.  But Julia's story gripped me and pulled me in.  It was why I finished the book so fast.  The repulsive part of Julia's story was how her husband treated her and the language used in those chapters.  There's nothing, in my opinion anyway, more repulsive than reading a book filled with swearing.  While I can skip over certain words in my mind, once I read them, I know that they're in there and I lose major respect for the author.

One other thing I noticed in Tatiana de Rosnay's book was that most of her characters talked the same way.  In a halting, stilted, not-using-full-sentences manner.  I could understand if de Rosnay wanted Julia to talk that way.  I could even understand if her husband or daughter talked that way.  But Sarah and her family, who lived sixty years earlier, talking that way was jarring and bewildering, at least for me.  In the end, though, neither the use of less-than-desirable language or the similar speech patterns did much to dissuade me from finishing the book.  I had to learn everything I could about the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup of July 1942, and see how Julia dealt with the changes in her life after finding out what happened to Sarah.  It definitely was a fascinating topic and a very interesting read.