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Sarah's Key
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
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Great first listens
Editorial reviews
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is the heart-breaking tale of 10-year-old Sarah Stravinsky, a French Jew, and her journey during the Holocaust in 1942. Paralleling her story is the account of American journalist Julia Jarmond, in the year 2002, who is living in France and assigned to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv', the French round-ups in which little Sarah and her family were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The two women have a tie that binds, as Julia discovers her French in-laws have owned the apartment that Sarah once lived in since her family was removed from it. As Julia desperately searches for Sarah, hoping she was one of the lucky few who escaped death at Auschwitz, she uncovers the unspeakable horror that Sarah endured in the very same apartment - a secret that has haunted her in-laws for 60 years.
If the superb simplicity of this saga isn't enough to draw you in, Polly Stone's flawless narration will. She gives each character a distinct voice (complete with accurate accent and pitch), which lends authenticity, as if the characters themselves have come alive within her. This novel, like most accounts of the Holocaust, is weighty, ridden with horrific details. Stone's tone is subtle, letting these details ring out and strike your heart. She's also a master at building suspense, and you'll find yourself so endeared by little Sarah, that you will be white-knuckled for her during her frightening journey.
The last portion of the novel is a bit drawn out, but this is forgivable, as the denouement is touching, and Sarah's struggle is one that will stick with you long after you've finished listening to it. (Colleen Oakley)
Publisher's summary
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.
Critic reviews
“Polly Stone's delivery of Sarah's story is riveting with its spare emotional power.” —AudioFile Magazine
“This is a remarkable historical novel, a book which brings to light a disturbing and deliberately hidden aspect of French behavior towards Jews during World War II. Like Sophie's Choice, it's a book that impresses itself upon one's heart and soul forever.” —Naomi Ragen, author of The Saturday Wife and The Covenant
“Sarah's Key unlocks the star crossed, heart thumping story of an American journalist in Paris and the 60-year-old secret that could destroy her marriage. This book will stay on your mind long after it's back on the shelf.” —Risa Miller, author of Welcome to Heavenly Heights
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- By MissSusie66 on 02-28-12
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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
- A Novel
- By: Jamie Ford
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's stunning debut, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.
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Engaging and Lovely. Highly recommend.
- By Robert on 02-06-09
By: Jamie Ford
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- A Novel
- By: Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.... As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends - and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is.
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MUCH better than I ever expected! Give it a try!
- By Kent on 10-19-09
By: Mary Ann Shaffer, and others
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The Art of Racing in the Rain
- By: Garth Stein
- Narrated by: Christopher Evan Welch
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times best-selling novel from Garth Stein - a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope - a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life...as only a dog could tell it.
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5 out of 3000
- By Roger on 02-23-10
By: Garth Stein
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Skeletons at the Feast
- By: Chris Bohjalian
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In January 1945, in the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives: An attempt to cross the remnants of the Third Reich, from Warsaw to the Rhine if necessary, to reach the British and American lines. As they work their way west, they encounter a countryside ravaged by war. Their flight will test both Anna’s and Callum’s love, as well as their friendship with Manfred - assuming any of them even survive.
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Disappointed.
- By Alan on 12-05-13
By: Chris Bohjalian
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The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
- A Novel
- By: Jan-Philipp Sendker
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be - until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the listener’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.
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Basic Story Interesting, But...
- By Monica on 06-04-13
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
- By: Khaled Hosseini
- Narrated by: Atossa Leoni
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss, and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them, in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul, they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation.
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Completely brilliant
- By Suze Weinberg on 06-01-07
By: Khaled Hosseini
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Orphan Train
- A Novel
- By: Christina Baker Kline
- Narrated by: Jessica Almasy, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to "aging out" out of the foster care system. A community-service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse.... As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.
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Moving story of sharing and transformation.
- By Kathi on 04-03-13
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The Winemaker's Wife
- By: Kristin Harmel
- Narrated by: Robin Eller, Lisa Flanagan, Madeleine Maby
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of the “engrossing” (People) and “poignant” (Booklist) international best seller The Room on Rue Amélie comes a remarkable and moving story of love, danger, and betrayal: two women in France in the darkest days of World War II and another in present-day America on a quest to uncover the secret that connects them.
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The narration was like nails on a chalkboard!
- By Diane on 08-20-19
By: Kristin Harmel
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The Paris Architect
- By: Charles Belfoure
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Like most gentiles in Nazi-occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard has little empathy for the Jews. So when a wealthy industrialist offers him a large sum of money to devise secret hiding places for Jews, Lucien struggles with the choice of risking his life for a cause he doesn't really believe in. Ultimately he can't resist the challenge and begins designing expertly concealed hiding spaces - behind a painting, within a column, or inside a drainpipe - detecting possibilities invisible to the average eye. But when one of his clever hiding spaces fails and the immense suffering of Jews becomes incredibly personal, he can no longer deny reality.
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Riveting
- By C. B. Schindel on 08-23-15
By: Charles Belfoure
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The Other Story
- By: Tatiana de Rosnay
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Vacationing at a luxurious Tuscan island resort, Nicolas Duhamel is hopeful that the ghosts of his past have finally been put to rest.… He's now a best-selling author, but when he was 24 years old, he stumbled upon a troubling secret about his family - a secret that was carefully concealed. In shock, Nicholas embarked on a journey to uncover the truth that took him from the Basque coast to St. Petersburg - but the answers wouldn’t come easily.
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Boring book
- By Ginger on 04-23-14
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The Paris Library
- A Novel
- By: Janet Skeslien Charles
- Narrated by: Nicky Diss, Sarah Feathers, Esther Wane, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet seems to have the perfect life with her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into the city, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books.
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Calling all lovers of libraries around the world
- By MelSA on 02-15-21
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The Women in the Castle
- By: Jessica Shattuck
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
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Skating On The Thin Ice Of Life
- By Sara on 04-29-17
By: Jessica Shattuck
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I Know This Much Is True
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Ken Howard
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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In the long awaited follow-up to the highly praised novel She's Come Undone, Dominick Birdsey must come to terms with himself, as well as with the schizophrenic twin brother he has spent his life both protecting and resenting.
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Disappointing
- By Douglas on 03-20-08
By: Wally Lamb
What listeners say about Sarah's Key
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Alexis
- 01-31-09
Haunting and Heartrending
Beautiful, poignant and often poetic, the story of Sarah, a heroic, tragic child living in a time of horror left me breathless. At the same time, the novel portrays a believable, smart and quirky contemporary protagonist who is strong and honest. I enjoyed this novel immensely. The reader does a superb job with each voice. I especially enjoyed her rendition of the contemporary protagonist, and I had not expected that at all. Well worth the time and energy. Thanks you.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Donna
- 11-03-11
This is a great read-don't understand naysayers
This is a wonderful story. Admittedly it's a bit slow getting started. And the cutting from the present to the past and back again takes getting use to; however, it is an excellent way of telling the story. Both stories are told in tandum and are wrapped up in a most satisfying way. It reminded me of a geneological search.
The book is well worth the time to read. I think those that do take the time will be very glad they did. Polly Stone, the narrator, does an outstanding job. Her accents are on point and she gives each character their own recognizable voice.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Charlotte
- 04-18-10
Great Listen !
I loved this book! Couldn't stop listening until I heard the whole story. Good job! Will definitely listen to it again. Hope to see other books on audible by this author.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Simone
- 06-13-15
Split Down The Middle
I first read this book in 2010 and I loved it! I think I even labelled it a favourite. It’s lingered in my memory for so long, I decided to pick it up again…. and I fell out of love.
My opinion this time is split right down the middle.
The storyline around Sarah was great. Still loved it. I also appreciated from the first time I read this book learning all about the Vel D’hiv Round-Up in Paris in 1942 and thanks to this book I tracked down the memorial in Paris to take pictures of it.
The rest of the book? Fail.
Because it was a re-read and I knew where the story was going and how it would end, I was less distracted by Sarah’s fascinating story and that left me able to pick apart the secondary storylines.
I did not really care for any of the characters and I found their relationships never felt real. It was all too forced and contrived, more like caricatures and less like real people. Julia’s attraction to William toward the end of the book was the least believable of all and I was never sure where it was going! Was it a burgeoning romance? Julia spoke of feeling soooooo at ease with him for some strange inexplicable reason, and their last conversation was filled with “I should have never gone there alone” and “I needed you with me” lines… If they were supposed to have had this amazing chemistry that kept them in each other’s minds for years, the author did a poor job of conveying that sensation.
I also wondered about the point of Julia’s baby storyline. It added nothing to the core story other than to provide a reason for divorcing her husband and give us a saccharine eye-rolly moment when we discover that she named the child Sarah. Who did not see that coming a mile away?
Regarding all her in-laws, I did not understand their motivations at all. “Don’t dig up the past, it’s too difficult, it’s too painful”… well… maybe if they were directly responsible for the events in the past but they were not - they were bystanders! At one point, Julia’s husband gets furious with her because of her investigation into the past, but based on what? He was not in on “the secret that needed to stay buried”, so why get irate about it being uncovered?
This leads me to my biggest complaint: Why is this even a secret? The events themselves were tragic enough and slowly discovering what happened to Sarah’s brother was very compelling. Why turn it into a secret on top of that? It’s as if the author wanted to increase the mystery by turning it all into something that needed to stay hushed up… but that was odd to me. Like for example, when we discover Julia’s father-in law had sent money to help Sarah on the condition it would be anonymous. Why? I think that was the weirdest part of all. Making up secrets just to have them.
Aside from the characters, another thing I didn’t like about the writing is that I sometimes felt like I was reading a map. “I took bus 62 to street X, then walked 3 block over to there…” It might have been fun for the author to insert navigation directions but it did not remind me of exploring Paris at all and I have been 4 times!
Regarding the narration, my hugest pet peeve was alive and well: how all Parisians sound like Inspector Clouseau. Ok, in all fairness this narrator was not THAT bad, but it always makes me wonder why bother with an accent at all. More often than not, it's more distracting than good.
(William's voice was terrible)
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anna Donskoy
- 04-08-12
Amazing story!
This was crrrazy good, and the narration was PERFECT!
I was skeptical in the beginning. I am not sure why I was skeptical. I read many books about Holocaust when I was young, and I heard many stories.. I think I was afraid to read another book, which would remind me about the cruel nature of all of us. I like to think that humankind is basically good no matter what, but then I remember Holocaust, genocide, etc., and I sometimes have my doubts.
It was interesting to learn about the French culture and what happened in July 1942 in Paris. However, I felt the book is not about the past, but about the present. The main idea and the struggle that is demonstrated so clearly in the book is the one between the opposing forces, the ones that would like to keep the present pleasant and free of past "messes" and the ones who uncover the secrets that should not be kept secrets in the first place. I just read a children's book where the character says that we should always move forward to life's messy glory.. Life is messy overall, keeping secrets do not make the "mess" go away. We must never forget.
I admire the character, Julia, for being so persistent in following the story. I loved both stories, Sarah's and Julia's. I love that Julia was able to find her voice. I think that we become better people connecting to the past. One can only find himself knowing the roots of his family, people, and country. Sarah gave Julia a voice of her own.
I love the writing, too. I thought that the language matched each character, and Zoe sounded like many kids I know. The ending was believable for me as well. Holocaust survivors did not always survive unless they had family. Julia had no one. I read stories, fictional and non-fictional accounts of the survivors ending their lives because it was too much to bear. It just proves that moving away and not talking about things, does not help, and it does not even dull the pain. We must accept and recognize the past, and I truly believe that we can never have too many books about Holocaust...
Great book!
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- Christine
- 08-21-12
More than just another European WWII Story
Sarah's Key is a beautifully written story that needed to be told. It is a work of fiction but based on some horrifically true events. It is more than another European WWII story. It is about a modern woman's struggles and self discovery.
More than anything else, it helps me to know what books a reviewer loves most when deciding on whether or not to spend my time or money on a particular book. Below I have listed some of my 5 or 4½ star books from many different genres:
Anne of Green Gables, The Book Thief, Bossypants, Catch Me if You Can, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, A Christmas Carol, The Clan of the Cave Bear series, The Color Purple, The Davinci Code, A Dog’s Purpose, Emma, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, A Girl Named Zippy, Glass Castle, Gone with the Wind, The Green Mile, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Harry Potter Series, The Help, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 1-3, The Hunger Games, To Kill a Mockingbird, Let’s Pretend this Never Happened, Little Women, Mind Hunter, Nineteen Minutes, The Outlander series, Peace like a River, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Pride and Prejudice, Saving Sammy, The Secret life of Bees, Shawshank Redemption, My Sister’s Keeper, Stand by Me, The Stand, The Time Traveler’s Wife, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...
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- Patricia
- 05-11-10
Historical
Brings to light the French Holocaust of which not many people are aware. The story was a little too coincidental but entertaining.
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- KEK
- 08-27-20
Tragic story
Excellent story. But narration dragged a bit. Better to have read it. A tragic plot, obviously.
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- Stacey M
- 02-16-19
OUTSTANDING!!!!
I listened to the whole book in 1 day. This is an excellent story which actually taught me something of history. I had no idea the French imprisoned Jewish people during the war, I actually did some research after I finished this. I listen to audiobooks constantly and this one is probably one of my favorites.
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- Jacqueline Nash
- 07-16-19
took me a minute to get into it
I would recommend the book it was some good information about that event that took place and it was an okay book but I would recommend it as a reed
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