touching story which switch back and forth in time (1942 and 2002); A young 10 year old girl, Sarah, has locked her brother in a cubbord as she is hauled off by French police to a jewish encampment. How the story moves is beautifully written and seen through the eyes of a reporter who cannot stop the fascination of an historical event she is unaware of. Great read. ( )

I was really captivated by the first 2/3 of this novel. The parallel stories of 10 year old Sarah in Paris in 1942 and American journalist, Julia, living in Paris in 2002 are inevitably intertwined and it drew me in. The last third seemed to lose steam. However, the story is important and the depiction of the round up of the Jews by the Parish police from a child's perspective is especially moving. ( )

This is not a perfect book, but I enjoyed reading it. The parallel stories of Sarah, taken away by the Nazis carrying the key to the cupboard where her little brother is hiding, and Julia, an American journalist living in Paris, are very compelling throughout the first half to two-thirds of the book. I loved learning the history of the Vel d'Hiv and I loved the sense of the two different voices intertwining to reveal both the history of roundup and deportation of the French Jews and of their own separate, but interconnected stories.

Where things got dicey for me was in the last part of the book where the voice of Sarah drops out completely and Julia, her pregnancy, and her marriage problems take over. I just didn't care much about whether or not she should stay with her philandering French husband and the implied potential love story between Julia and Sarah's son was just too pat for me.

Still, read this book for the first wonderful bit and read it to learn some history you didn't know and read it for a little tragedy and a little bit of hope in a dark and scary time we should never forget. You won't be sorry you did. ( )

Sarah's Key was an interesting read. The two stories intertwined compellingly...at least until the end, where the story stumbled a bit and left me a little...empty?

The writing was good, the characters well drawn. But like life itself, Sarah's Key is not neatly wrapped up in a bow. ( )

I learned a great deal about France during WWII ( )