Author: Tatiana de Rosnay
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre: Historical Fiction, Adult
Pages: 294
Publisher: St. Martins Press
Year Published: 2006
Format: Audiobook
"Paris, July 1942: Ten-year-old Sarah is brutally arrested with her family in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, the most notorious act of the French collaboration with the Nazis, but before the police come to take them, Sarah locks her younger brother, Michel, in their favorite hiding place, a cupboard in the family\s apartment. She keeps the key, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel' D'Hiv's sixtieth anniversary, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked by her Paris-based-American magazine to write an article about this black day in France's past. Julia has lived in Paris for nearly twenty-five years, married a Frenchman, and she is shocked both by her ignorance about the event and the silence that still surrounds it. In the course of her investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of a long-hidden family secret that connects her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from the terrible days spent shut in at the Vel' d'Hiv' to the camps and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Writing about the fate of her country with a pitiless clarity, Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and email surrounding this painful episode in French history."
My Rating: 2.5/5
This book is a very subtle work about the World War II events from French History and while it highlighted things I had not read about, it seemed less about that and more about Julia's life. Which is fine if that had been what I thought I was signing on for. The intriguing aspect just wasn't here for the story. I enjoyed it, just didn't hold my attention the way I wish it had.
Thanks for reading,
Sidny
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