This book was one of those that tries to explore history by having chapters that take place seventy years ago alternate with chapters about a character living in the present. That would have been fine if I had not wanted to strangle the modern character.
The book was about a terrible roundup in Paris in the summer of 1942 where they pulled out of bed all the Jewish men, women, and children they could find and sent them off to Auschwitz. The title character, Sarah, is only ten years old when she and her parents are rounded up with all the other Jews. They are taken to a large stadium where they are kept for days without food or water or functioning toilets. Then they're taken to camps outside the city where they are separated into three groups: men, women, and children. The men are sent off first, then the women. The children are kept at camp for weeks before they are finally sent after their parents.
It is at this point that Sarah makes a break for it. She escapes with another girl to a farmhouse that is far enough away from the camp that the elderly couple there are willing to help. The other girl doesn't make it, but Sarah enlists the help of the old couple to get back to her home in Paris.
Except it's no longer her home. Another family has already moved in. There's a whole lot more than that, but I don't want to spoil it for you.
The modern character is Julia, the daughter-in-law of the boy that moved into the apartment with his parents right after Sarah and her parents were taken away. She was the one that drove me crazy. She's stuck in this loveless marriage to an awful man who never treats her well, except when they're in bed. That's great, but is that really a reason to put up with the rest of his shit? I'm sorry, but after reading about the hell that this poor little girl went through (HER ENTIRE FAMILY DIED!) I can't say I was terribly sympathetic of the woman who was too afraid to leave her husband.
Then Julia feels the need to hunt down Sarah and her son and tell them that they've never been forgotten. Why? What good does that do anyone? Why can't Julia just let people get on with their lives? I don't think that Julia honestly wanted to help anyone other than herself. I think she wanted to let Sarah know her family's side of the story so that Sarah wouldn't think they were all terrible people. When she went to hunt her down, Julia was thinking about what was best for her, not what was best for Sarah or her son (whose life, by the way, Julia ruined when she told him the truth about his mother).
Sarah's chapters are written in third person and they are awesome. Julia's chapters are written in first person and they are significantly less awesome. Part of that, like I said, is because I just didn't like Julia. Part of it was because there was way too much longing and gasping. Every time Julia wanted to do anything she "longed" for it. I don't think I ever read 10 pages without encountering "longed" or "longing." Then there were people gasping way too much. Sometimes in places that didn't even make sense. At one point, Julia imagines her husband's "gasp of joy". What does that even mean? It made all of her chapters were way too melodramatic.
I wasn't too fond of her dialogue either. There were times when I felt that the narrator was having characters say things because de Rosnay wanted to talk about those feelings, not because it was believable. That, combined with a total lack of segues left the dialogue feeling very stunted and unrealistic.
I don't want to leave you with the impression that I hated this book. Sarah was awesome and I loved reading the chapters that followed her. At first, reading about Julia was a nice break from the heavy shit that Sarah was dealing with. But the chapters devoted to Sarah stop about half way through the book and it was after that point that Julia really started to get on my nerves.
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