sarah's key by tatiana de rosnay

sarah's key tells two stories:

one is of sarah, a young jewish girl who lives in paris during wwii. on the night of july 16, 1942, the french police come to sarah's house in the middle of the night, arresting her family as part of the vel d'hiv round up. thinking she will be home in a few hours, sarah locks her younger brother in a secret cupboard and keeps the key in her pocket.

the second story follows julia, an american journalist living in paris sixty years later. she receives an assignment to write an article about the vel d'hiv for a magazine. during her investigation she encounters the reluctance of the french to talk about the event and discovers her own families link to sarah's story.

i half-way liked the book. i really liked sarah's story. it was heartbreaking. and i was pleased to learn about an event in history that i hadn't heard much about before.

i didn't care for julia's story line. i didn't mind it as far as it was connected to her uncovering sarah's story, but beyond that it confused me. i didn't see the relevance or importance of her marital problems and pregnancy to the real point of the book, and it became annoying and distracting. and the ending was so abrupt and awkward.