Sarah's Key

This is one of those books that kept showing up on lists all over the internet, receiving many rave reviews, and I just picked it up from our school library one day, not knowing anything about it at all.  Even when I started reading it, I still didn't know what it was about in the least except that it had some foundation in World War II and involved a character who was a child. 

This is one of those stories that involves characters in two different periods of time.  One is Sarah, a girl in France at during WWII, and Julia, an American married to a Frenchman and living in France, working for a magazine.  She gets assigned an article for a 60 anniversary of some event she has never heard of.  In her research, she discovers Sarah's story, which leads her to question several aspects of her own life and redirects her life efforts in a different direction. 

This story starts with tragedy, but knowing that it is WWII, the reader should expect that.  I know there are reviews out there that explain, even the back of the book does a bit, but not knowing and just reading I think creates the more authentic reading experience.  It is an incredibly beautiful story, written well.  I did wish that one of the two storylines could have carried through more, but I understand why it didn't.  I love Sarah and come to love Julia and found myself wishing the book was longer just so I could spend more time with them.  This is an incredibly beautiful book that if you haven't read, it must be moved to the top of your reading list, now.