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Sarah's Key

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Sarah's Key

By: Tatiana de Rosnay
Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard
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About this listen

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old Jewish girl, is arrested by the French police in the middle of the night, along with her mother and father. Desperate to protect her younger brother, she locks him in a cupboard and promises to come back for him as soon as she can. Paris, May 2002: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked to write about the 60th anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv'--the infamous day in 1942 when French police rounded up thousands of Jewish men, women and children, in order to send them to concentration camps. Sarah's Key is the poignant story of two families, forever linked and haunted by one of the darkest days in France's past. In this emotionally intense, page-turning novel, Tatiana de Rosnay reveals the guilt brought on by long-buried secrets and the damage that the truth can inflict when they finally come unravelled.

©2007 Tatiana de Rosnay (P)2008 Oakhill Publishing Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant  
It was a very good story and I did enjoy it just lacked something to make it an excellent read / listen.

Good story

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All while listening to this I wondered why the narrator did a British accent for the French people in the book. I found it strange and a little annoying.

Are the people in this book French or British?

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The audio was quite annoying so I've abandoned it and am finishing by reading the kindle version.

Had to buy the book

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Two very different worlds and two very different stories that smelt into one, EXQUISITELY done in my view!

The only thing I wanted was to read on. I found it a gripping story, and I became part of both worlds.

It is a beautiful and moving story of a little Jewish girl during the second world war, and an American journalist in Paris in 2002. I was intrigued by the fact that the life of the girl was so linked with the life of the inlaws of the journalist.

The fact that the narrator changed voices according to which person was talking, sounded a bit odd in my ears, however, this didn't at all change my opinion about the book.

Well........it was a great read! The story stayed with me for days after it had ended.

Moving and sensitive story

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I’m not sure if this book would have been better if the narrator wasn’t quite so appalling. The voices were so exaggerated and comical that I struggled to take the story seriously, which is a real shame due to the subject matter. I feel this could have been a really good story but somehow missed the mark.

Awful narration

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Story was ok. A bit trite and sentimental.
Reader was dreadful - irritating voices for characters.

Most awful narrator ever

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What made the experience of listening to Sarah's Key the most enjoyable?

Great story with unusual, but excellent structure

What was most disappointing about Tatiana de Rosnay’s story?

The narration/performance. Truly the worst I've heard on audible. The French people were portrayed in a voice that was a stuffed, upper class English unbearable to listen to. Gave up in the end and continued to read on Kindle.

Would you be willing to try another one of Laurence Bouvard’s performances?

No

Gripping

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The idea of the story is quite good, but terribly predictable. The narrator struggles with male voices in French and British accents, so all those men sound weird. I wish that there had been several narrators.
I have mixed feelings about the story. Much of it tugged at the heartstrings, but the writing style was lacking. And as the story went backwards and forwards in time, there should have been chapter numbers or at least the date. I expect on the page there was a gap, which helped the reader to expect a jump back in time. But the narrator often didn't leave a long enough pause, so the change in time was a confusing jolt. I also didn't like how Sarah was called 'the girl' for a lot of the book; we were told the names of other people, but not her. Why not? It seemed pointless.
So I'm left a bit deflated, especially as the end wasn't great. I might have enjoyed it more if I had read the book rather than listened.

Poor narration, average novel

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A rare case of the movie being better than the book. The movie was spare, poignant, and heart breaking. Bringing the actions of the French during the war and the vel d'hiv round up into the public consciousness is an important and too often overlooked part of the story of the holocaust.

The book is choppy. The writing facile. Self-indulgent. The dialogue doesn't flow. The characters fail to leap from the page. There is too much tell and little show. It is word after flat word on a page. It couldn't end soon enough. Had the book been more focused on the past, it would have been far stronger. The narrator was self-indulgent. Her motivations seemed insincere.

Skip the book. Watch the film.

Watch the film

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