Hello @internrachel @julia1

I read Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (304 pages) after seeing the film. It is a a fictional story based on a real event that happened in France – when the Gestapo ordered the French police to round up Jewish people in Paris and send them to camps. The story starts with ten-year old Sarah locking up her younger brother in a cupboard when the police come because she thinks he’ll be safe there, and promising to come back to him. And then follows her life thereafter.
This is interwoven with the story of an American reporter (Julia) who has been living in Paris for over a decade. Julia is giving the task on reporting the Vel d’Hiv roundup and finds herself and her family more closely linked to the event than she ever expected.
It’s a very sad story and I’d be inclined to recommend the film perhaps above the book – though even that feels like it goes on a little too long once Sarah’s story ends and Julia’s continues. Julia of the film is a little wiser and knowledgeable about the subject and Kristin Scott Thomas brings a much stronger character to it than I thought was in the book. The actor who plays Sarah is also brilliant.
I’m now reading The Count of Monte Cristo – a book I’ve started several times and always put down. I’m determined to actually finish it during September.