Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Paperback 293 pages
Published September 30th, 2008 by St. Martin's Griffin (first published March 8th, 2007)
I own a copy

his book taught me about the history of the Velodrome d'Hiver of Paris, which I knew nothing about before reading Sarah's Key: how the German Gestapo's got the French police to round up all the Jews living in Paris at that time _ July 16, 1942.

Sarah Starzynski, a little Jewish girl of 12 years old, lived in an apartment in Paris with her mom and dad and her younger brother, Michel. One day they were brutally taken away by the French police to Vel'd'Hiv. She locked her younger brother in a cupboard and promised she would return. While she was separated from her parents at Beaune-la-Rolande, she escaped with a friend and ends up with a family who later adopts her. All she could think about was her little brother. The family from Orlean helped Sarah get back home, and she found her brother dead. It had been two weeks

It is a story that is interwoven between two main characters, Julie and Sarah. I found it difficult making the switch back and forth between the two at first. I preferred Sarah's voice to Julie's because it was more real and I would have to say Sarah would typically be someone I would like to meet in real life.

Julie finds out from her uncle in law that the place they were moving into was the same place Sarah's little brother Michel had died. This was Rue de Saintonge.

It doesn't happen in the book, but I imagined Julie and William getting married in the end.

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