Haar naam was Sarah (original 2007; edition 2008)

Haniah May 10th 2013

I finally picked up this novel and just could not put it down! You could read my full review (contains some spoilers) on my website: http://www.rulethewaves.net/blog/?p=2598 ( )

Great book. ( )

recommended for: all who enjoy holocaust literature, historical fiction novels, well crafted novels

I wasn’t sure how the back and forth chapters between one girl in 1942 and a different woman in 2002 were going to work for me, but this story is so well told.

I thought I’d be interested in the 1942 story but wasn’t sure how much I’d become involved with the 2002 story, but much to my relief I enjoyed both stories, although I did think Sarah’s 1942 story was slightly stronger than Julia’s 2002 story. However, I do think my favorite character might be Zoe from the 2002 story.

Reading this was chilling, suspenseful, devastating, heartbreaking, and heartwarming. It’s about loss and the destructive power of secrets, both of which are subjects close to my heart, so it was very emotionally powerful for me.

I thought that the author created perfect cadence in her writing style; I loved it. I read it in two days as I was loathe to put it down.

The tale seemed mostly authentic, occasionally something rang slightly off but I didn’t take note and those moments were ones I forgot because the story as a whole rang true. It’s one of those tales made as vivid by fiction as by a non-fiction account, not diluted at all by the parallel story lines.

There were a couple of plot points that I think were meant to be subtle mysteries and that were glaringly obvious to me ahead of the reveal but, even though I noticed them and could tell the author was not being as clever as she meant to be, they did not really diminish my enjoyment of the book, but they did almost cause me to deduct a star from my rating.

I was ignorant of the specific event that took place in Paris in Nazi occupied France that’s the center of this story and I’ve read a lot of non-fiction and fiction holocaust books; I really appreciated this one because I do always enjoy learning new things, however disturbing.

The back of this paperback (advance readers’) edition has an author interview, historical perspective notes, recommended reading (many of the listed books will now go on my to-read shelf) and reading group questions.

This is now one of my treasured books. I am so grateful that I won it at Goodreads’ First Reads program. As soon as I saw it listed there, it went on my to-read list, but given the length of that list I’m not sure when I’d have actually read it; I am so glad that I did. ( )

Book club read. Engrossing, page-turner. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this. At first I did not like the constant changing of character who was telling the story, the jumping in time but after a while i got used to it. The story it self was so powerful. I understand why this book was a bestseller. ( )

This book is part Holocaust fiction, part chicklit. Neither part is written very well.
I didn't find that the WWII parts, Sarah's story, was particularly insightful or showed me anything I haven't already read about that period in history. It was alright when Sarah's story flipflopped with Julia's. but then Julia's story takes over, and the book got worse and worse. Stereotype characters (with the exception of Eduardo, the father-in-law), lame dialogue, predictable storyline and sappy ending. Uninteresting and not worth the effort. ( )

I didn't know anything about the Vel'd'Hiv roundup until I read this book, and I applaud the author for tackling this very sad story. Overall, I really enjoyed it, but there were few surprises and the writing occasionally distracted from the story. I liked how she alternated between Sarah's story in 1942 and Julia's story in 2002, but the short chapters chopped them up too much. I would be just settling back into Sarah's world when I'd be flipped back to present-day and vice-versa. Julia's marital problems also seem incredibly insignificant when placed next to Sarah's journey.

Really, it was a great telling of a story that receives little attention in the context of WWII and the Holocaust. ( )

Sarah's story was heartbreaking and beautifully written. Julia's story was a bit more clunky and didn't work as well. Ultimately, I applaud the author for taking on such a challenging topic and educating a new generation of readers on this dark period of history. I hope holocaust historical novels will always be written. So we never forget. ( )

The history of the Vél' d'Hiv' is heartbreaking but necessary to remember. The novel shifts from the story of a Jewish girl Sarah, and a modern day writer Julia Jarmond, an American living in France who is researching the Vél' d'Hiv'. As she is looking into the details she stumbles onto the story of Sarah.

We learn that Sarah is forced to lock her brother into a cupboard during the roundup of Jews. Her story is powerful and tragic. This is where Rosnay's writing skills really shine. However once the details of Sarah's ordeal are finally revealed, the story seemed to devolve into a much less interesting narrative around Julia's marriage. I didn't much care for Julia, her husband or their disintegrating marriage. In the end I felt annoyed that they had been made a part of the story. ( )

I am drawn to historical novels that focus on the plight of the Jewish people in Europe during WWII and this did not disappoint. Alternating chapters tell Sarah's story of being arrested in the Vel' d'Hiv roundup in Paris in July 1942 and Julia who in May 2002 finds connections to her own family in the long past horror. Powerful, haunting, compelling - give yourself time as you will not want to interrupt the story with laundry or cleaning, I didn't!

This book had some very good parts. Sarah’s story, the story of the Vel d’Hiv round-up, representative of countless other children taken from Paris that day, was tragic and captivating. And because it is the story of a French girl, rather than a German or Polish one, it gives us a bit of a different perspective on what was happening. In fact, Sarah’s story is so good that I wish it had been the entire book. But instead, we are stuck discovering it through Julia.

I wasn’t a big fan of Julia. She was fine early on in the book, when we had Sarah’s narration to break hers up. But later in the book a lot of things about her rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like her obsession with Sarah’s story was very over-the-top, despite the connection to her apartment. Her neglect of her pregnancy, in particular, bothered me. I also didn’t like that we only got the bad things about her husband. He is almost never displayed in a good light, when there must have been some good there for her to marry him in the first place.

I also didn’t care for the way the book finished. Not because of how Sarah’s story ended — that actually made a lot of sense — but because of the relationship that Julia forms. It just didn’t fit for me.

Overall, this story is worth reading if you want to learn something about France during the war. But don’t be surprised if Julia kills it for you. ( )

Wow. What to say. I loved this book. The thing is, it is a very tragic and heart-wrenching story. Not only is it based around WWII and the Vel' d'Hiv' (an event I was unaware of prior to reading this) but the tragic story of Sarah really sinks deep because of its historical significance.

The back and forth between the present and the past, and how they are intertwined, make this a very fast and engaging read.

Definitely recommend. ( )

In WWII France, the French police rounded up over 13,000 Jews and held them in a huge stadium, the Vélodrome d'Hiver, for days before shipping the survivors off to concentration camps. This is the fictional story of one little girl who was taken and what her life might have been like. It's also the story of a modern-day journalist researching Sarah's family.

This review is not going to do this book justice. I've waited a couple of weeks to write this and my notes on it are in all honesty pretty fragmented.

I read Sarah's story with a cold horror in the pit of my stomach. There were so many ways that everything went wrong that all I can say is that I was just horrified. There were moments of kindness, as there almost always are in Holocaust stories, but the biggest part just left me speechless. Any Holocaust book that captures that feeling is an important one. We can't ever be allowed to forget what happened.

What knocked this down to four stars for me was the journalist's story. I didn't care. Parts of it were important for showing how the effects of something that happened over 60 years ago are still being felt today, but I could have done without most of the personal drama. It was insignificant in the context of a book about the Holocaust.

One little preachy thing. I could not help but be reminded of the New Orleans Superdome and Hurricane Katrina as I read this. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm trivializing the history, because I promise I'm not, but a stadium where people are trapped just brings it to my mind. This story somehow made the recent event a little more real for me and I can't believe that something like that happened in America in the 21st century. We should be ashamed.

I feel like this was an important contribution to the Holocaust literature out there. It covers an even that was shameful and horrifying and is somehow not very well known. If you have the stomach for Holocaust books, read this. We just can't forget what happened. ( )

Sarah's story was a part of history I knew nothing about and I wanted to find out more. Julia's terribleness made me quit this book.

An amazing, although sad, story. It made me cry! ( )

Sarah's Key was the chosen as our book club book read. I wasn't sure after reading the description, I was going to like it. Then I started reading it and I couldn't put it down. I did not know the story of Vel' d'Hiv's roundup. This wonderfully written fictional account of the real event made me want to learn more about it.

Sarah was 10 years old when her family was arrested in the middle of the night. She managed to hide her brother in a cupboard. She locked it and took the key with her intending to come back for him. The rest of the story follows her quest to get back to her brother. The story goes back and forth between Sarah and a journalist who is following the 60th anniversary of Vel' d'Hiv.

I loved that this book made me think and made me want to cry. ( )

The history part was fascinating but I didn't care for the characters in the present (modern day) part of the book. ( )

This book had such a gut-wrentching premise... and then the author spent her time focusing on a twit of an American journalist who was investigating the Vel' d'Hiv events rather than the fates of Sarah and her brother. It could have been a five star book, but the author failed to deliver.

I will admit to knowing NOTHING of the Vel' d'Hiv and will also admit to feeling like a sack of crap about it.

( )

3.5 stars

This book was really interesting, but also totally sad! The story of what happened to Sarah's family during WWII is just heartwrenching! I had no idea what went on in France during that time period, and it's just terrible! And as Julia Jarmond is researching the time period, it was so frustrating to see the bad attitudes of the French people about it—from indifference to wanting to pretend it never happened! I'm not an advocate of whining about the wrongs done to your ancestors (and I could!), but if we don't REMEMBER what happened, we're in danger of letting history repeat itself!

The thing that bugged me about the story was what was happening to Julia. Well, it was mostly her husband. JERK. That's really all I have to say. What a huge frickin' JERK. And then there was the ending............................... ?? Did it imply that there could be some kind of relationship there? Or was it just supposed to be like... Sarah's memory is going to live on? I don't know. I felt like the ending was pretty abrupt. *shrugs*

An interesting and informative read, overall! ( )

Granted, it was perhaps unfair of me to read another French WWII book right after re-reading Suite Francaise, but even so, this just does not hold up. The story is good, and in another author's hands this book could have been great, harsh as that may be to say. The real problem was with the characters; they lacked depth and complexity. The present-day narrator, Julia, seemed a little naive, and wasn't terribly likable; Sarah, a little girl in 1941, did not seem like an authentic child. (It's a real talent to be able to create the character of a child so that he or she seems real, but it has certainly been done before.)

Overall, each character seemed to have one or two "markers" - something about their personal history, their personality, or their situation that was supposed to evoke sympathy (or dislike) in the reader. That the Holocaust was sad and horrible things happened is a given; an author can't rely on that to carry her story. If her agenda was to tell the world about the horrors of the Vel d'Hiv, she should have written a nonfiction book.

Finally, the format: switching back and forth between Julia in the present and Sarah in the past wasn't necessarily a bad decision, but the sections were too short. She may have been better off with longer sections, to allow the reader to become more invested in each story.

In general, rather disappointing. ( )

Fuck you [b:Sarah's Key|556602|Sarah's Key|Tatiana de Rosnay|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1317064109s/556602.jpg|2523229], you manipulative sonofabitching asshole. How dare you make me feel like this at Christmas?! Dead baby brother in a cupboard?! Really?! Gassing the parents at Auschwitz wasn't enough? I don’t give a goddamn what you throw at me for the rest of the story. I WILL NOT CRY AFTER THAT BULLSHIT. I know that’s all you want and you’re not going to get it!* Not from me.

None of the miserable crap in this story would even happen! Here's Sarah and her little brother as the police are banging on the door and taking the whole family away for being Jewish:
"She grabbed him, but he wriggled out of her grasp and slithered into the long, deep cupboard hidden in the surface of the wall of their bedroom. The one they played hide-and-seek in. They hid there all the time, locked themselves in, and it was like their own little house. Maman and Papa knew about it, but they always pretended they didn't."

Do they make cupboards that lock from the inside? No.
If you’ve got two kids who like to play in a cupboard with a lock, do you let them play in it with the key so they can lock each other in? No. You unlock it and hide the key. Duh.
If the police come for you and you want to protect your brother, even if you think you’re coming back in the morning, do you lock your brother in there for the night? No. No one would do that. Not even a 10-year-old. You'd just close him in. If the police try to open a cupboard to look inside and it's locked, they're going to make you unlock it.
In times of extreme fear does a 4-year-old kid decide to stay in a cupboard instead of going with their parents? No.

Then on top of all that we're supposed to believe that a new family moves into the apartment right after the old family leaves and no one smells the rotting child in the cupboard?!?! Have you ever had a mouse die under your refrigerator? A raccoon die under your porch? Right. But lets just assume that the family doesn't smell it. Maybe they don't have noses! They would still probably pick the lock so they could USE THE CUPBOARD in their goddamn new apartment!!! The whole premise of the whole plot is just one flaw after another. And then that terrible poem at the end! WHY?!?!

Not to mention the half-assed chick-lit nitwit character I couldn’t care less about. Fucking Julia. I wish she would die in a locked cupboard. She takes up most of the book with her idiotic pregnancy and her arrogant French husband. (How refreshing! An arrogant Frenchman! Where on earth did the author come up with that?!?)

Ok. Ok. Obviously this book made me really really mad and I gave it two stars, which is kind of weird! But here's why: The Sarah part of the story was really quite good. I learned about the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, which is interesting and upsetting and I'd never even heard of. It made me feel awful and guilty and pissed off, but it made me FEEL. And that's something.







*I shed one small tear at the very end totally against my will, DAMMIT! When she named the baby Sarah, even though I saw it coming a mile away and I hated her anyway so why do I care?!?! URRGH!!! (I hated Julia, not the baby. I'm sure the baby was sweet.) ( )

Not sure how I want to rate this....2.5 stars might be more accurate. I think part of the problem was that I read, "Those Who Save Us," before this book. That book was phenomenal. This book felt like a failed attempt at recreating "Those Who Save Us."

The story alternates between that of Sarah, a French, Jewish girl in WWII, and Julia, a modern day journalist living in Parish. I enjoyed Sarah's story and was disappointed when it abruptly stopped. Julia's story was much more difficult to become emotionally involved with and felt contrived.


I'm hiding this under "spoiler," but I'm not sure why, because the book is ridiculously predictable.

My specific issues with the book:
1.) SUCH a see-through plot. Already by chapter 2, it was obvious that Julia was living in Sarah's former apartment. Why the author acted as though it were a revelation halfway through the book is beyond me.
1a.) Also, Julia names her baby Sarah. Duh. We all saw that coming. But, again, the author treats this as a revelation. Why?
2.) Really? A dead boy between the walls, in the middle of summer, and you're telling me the new family didn't notice the stench?
3.) The ended was dragged out FAR too long. The last 40-50 pages could have largely been cut.


For plot, I give the book 2 stars. But for it's history, I must give it 3. Even if the storyline failed to impress me, I'd doubt I'd have otherwise learned about the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. That aspect of the book was fascinating.

Not a terrible book, I suppose, but a bit of a disappointment. ( )

What shall I say about this book that hasn't been said already? I have no clue. Therefore I'll stick to my personal experience.
I loved the book.
Like I fell in love with the diary of Anne Frank when I was a child, this book did more or less the same to me yesterday.
The story of Sirka / Sarah is very dark, emotional, sad. It made me feel bad. The more because it was so clear that the people living then, as many people living 'now' did not want to know about what was going on, what had happened. They were for some reason shutting their eyes for so much cruelty.

Julia lives in Paris & gets the assignment to tell the story of the Vel d'Hivers. Her journey towards the past, towards the young girl is impressive. At times she seems 'the American without any respect for the past, for secrets' but in general I admire how she keeps on searching, regardless what happens.

What I did not like very much, was the great coincidence of Julia getting to live in the appartment that Sarah and her family had lived in so many years ago. That foundation of the story was, to me, far fetched, like the author had been looking for a way to tie the two stories together.

And to let history, present and future touch each other the way she did was a bit... well, too much of something good. A happy ending (for some of the characters) is okay, but the book is not about a love story or marital problems. It is Sarah's story, and that is what disturbed me in the way the author wrote it and that's why this book gets 4 stars. ( )

Because it looks like a nice book, a good book, a book that can be recommended, I decided to make this English copy of mine available through BC. ( )