Audio read by Polly Stone (who did a beautiful job with the French accents)BBC Audiobooks America, 2008
(book published in 2007)
8 unabridged cds
10 hours
293 pages
Rating: 3
The last cd started skipping, so I read the last tenth of the book.
The story is told from two points-of-view. Sarah Starzynski, an 11-year old girl who, in June of 1942, is rounded up with other Jewish families in Paris and taken to the Vel' d'Hiv, then to a camp that is the prelude to Auschwitz; and Julia Jarmand, an American journalist living in Paris who is investigating the horrible crimes committed during the roundup to Vel' d'Hiv. She discovers a close tie to the tragedy when she finds that her husband's family has lived in Sarah's apartment since that fateful time in 1942 and she begins searching for more information, particularly Sarah's fate.
This is a tragic Holocaust story. I like the way it shows clearly how crimes of the past have their own repurcussions in the present and future. The whole story about Sarah is well written, poignant, meaningful. But the contemporary part didn't sit completely well with me. Julia's charming, narcisistic husband, Bertrand, for one. And we're to believe that after fifteen years of marriage, she is told confidential information by her father-in-law, whom she has never particularly gotten along with? And then there's a pregnancy....some of this part of the story seemed unreal to me. Reactions. Feelings. Some were too intense and some were missing. Maybe its the way the story was read...though I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator's rendition. There was just too much about Julia and her family that was "off" or missing or something.....
No comments:
Post a Comment