Sarah's Key

As a continuation on my break from futuristic books I just recently read the book ‘Sarah’s Key’ by Tatiana de Rosnay. This is another book that takes place during WWII but this one deals more with occupied France and the concentration camps that were there. On July 16, 1942 French policeman held what they called ‘The Great Roundup’ where they captured thousands of Jews and took them to a large stadium where they were kept in inhumane conditions for days, and then were forced to ride cattle cars on the train to various concentration camps. From these camps they were then transferred to Auschwitz and gassed to death. Many of the French people do not know the role that their fellow countrymen played in murdering the Jews, and if they do know, they refuse to talk about it because they would rather forget about it.

This is the story of a modern day reporter trying to find out the gruesome facts about that terrible day in July in 1942, and the little girl named Sarah who she discovers is connected to her family in a tragic way. The beginning of the book jumps between these two character’s stories and so you get to see both sides. Although this is of course a horrible subject to be reading about it also presents a lot of history and makes it absolutely impossible to forget. “Never forget” is an ongoing theme of this book and is definitely honoring those men, women, and children who died in those hellish conditions.

I really did enjoy this book. Not only did I learn a lot, but it was a captivating page turner. I must warn you that it is definitely written for adults and I don't know if I would even recommend it to kids in high school. I would say more like 18 years old or older for this one.  My only complaint was that the ending kind of seemed to drag on and on and I felt like it was superfluous since she had resolved everything a few chapters ago. However the majority of the book was very good and I would highly recommend it!