Sarah's Key jumps between Paris in 1942 and 2002. The 1942 story centers around the "Vel' d’Hiv’ Roundup, which I had not known about prior to reading this book. Sarah is the girl in 1942. Her story was heartbreaking and captivating. I wish the whole book had been about her.
In 2002, Julia is a journalist investigating the Vel' d’Hiv’ Roundup. She becomes personally invested in Sarah's story and is determined to find out what happened to her. I wanted to like Julia. I wanted to care about her problems, but it was hard to go from chapters about a 10 year old girl trying to survive the Holocaust, and then jump back to a grown woman who has a mean husband. Granted, the 2002 story gets more serious as we go along, but I just couldn't care as much as I was supposed to.
I really liked this book, but felt like the ending left a little to be desired. Spoiler ahead!! Maybe the author's point was that even the people who physically survived the Holocaust didn't have much chance of a happy future. I just wanted more for Sarah.
There's a movie, too. I'll probably try to watch it at some point to see how it compares.
It seems like I've read a lot of books lately where the author jumps from the past to modern day. It's like they decided historical fiction is boring and we have to have a modern connection for it to stay interesting. Generally, I find that I like the old story and think the modern characters are kind of obnoxious.
Have you read this? What did you think?
I actually read this book at the start of this year too. I agree, I liked the 1942 part of the story better than the 2002 part. I agree too that the older story was so emotional from the beginning, that it was hard to jump back to the modern story line. I didn't know there's a movie, I'll have to check it out.
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