Book Review: Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah's Key

By: Tatiana de Rosnay

Pub. Date: September 2008

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Format: Paperback , 320pp  

ISBN-13: 9780312370848

ISBN: 0312370849

Source: Library copy

Synopsis:

A New York Times bestseller. 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.

My Review:

I had to stay up late last night in order to finish this book. I was so drawn into the story that I knew there was no way I could fall asleep before finding out how it all ended. I was also so uncomfortable almost the whole time through Sarah's Key.


There are two plot lines running throughout the novel and both were sad and tragic. I wanted to know more (mostly, I wanted to know how it would end for the characters) while I also didn't want to read anymore because the characters were in such terrible positions.
Sarah, a young Jewish girl in Paris of 1942 is torn from her home, along with her family and Jewish neighbors, in the middle of the night by the French police. In what become known as the Vel' d'Hiv', Sarah and the others Jews were placed in a large building for days without any sanitary precautions and extremely little food. They are not told what will happen to them. During the raid, Sarah hid her younger brother in a small, locked cabinet in their apartment since she assumed they'd be home soon. Grief and disbelief struck her when she realized she was not going home and her brother was locked in a cabinet, and that she and her parents were going to be led to their deaths by the hands of her fellow Frenchmen.

Julie Jarmond, an American, is married to a Parisian man and has a daughter in Paris 2002. She loves Paris but lately she feels distant from her husband and Parisian life. As a journalist, she begins investigating the Vel' d'Hiv'. As her investigation deepens, she finds a connection between her and Sarah, leading to a wild goose chase for her Sarah.

I was horrified by Sarah's story. I had never heard of the events of the Vel' d'Hiv' or the actions of the French against the Jews in their own country. Sarah's story was incredibly tragic. Julie's story, though, also made me uncomfortable and sad. Along the way, she discovers that she is pregnant and expects her husband to be happy... he is not. He is going through a mid-life crisis and wants her to get an abortion. Julie's situation, while not a matter of life and death over a whole group of people, still deals with the possible death of her unborn baby or the death of her marriage. I could not imagine ever needing to make that choice.

Sarah's Key is enthralling and tragic, poignant and grievous. I recommend it for those ready to deal with many emotions while reading it. It's a quick read, but it definitely drained me emotionally.


My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book Review: Eromenos by Melanie McDonald

Eromenos

By: Melanie McDonald

Pub. Date: March 2011

Publisher: Seriously Good Books LLC

Format: Paperback , 176pp  

ISBN-13: 9780983155409

ISBN: 0983155402

Source: Received through Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Synopsis:

Eros and Thanatos converge in the story of a glorious youth, an untimely death, and an imperial love affair that gives rise to the last pagan god of antiquity. In this coming-of-age novel set in the second century AD, Antinous of Bithynia, a Greek youth from Asia Minor, recounts his seven-year affair with Hadrian, fourteenth emperor of Rome. In a partnership more intimate than Hadrian's sanctioned political marriage to Sabina, Antinous captivates the most powerful ruler on earth both in life and after death.
This version of the affair between the emperor and his beloved ephebe vindicates the youth scorned by early Christian church fathers as a "shameless and scandalous boy" and "sordid and loathsome instrument of his master's lust." EROMENOS envisions the personal history of the young man who achieved apotheosis as a pagan god of antiquity, whose cult of worship lasted for hundreds of years—far longer than the cult of the emperor Hadrian.
In EROMENOS, the young man Antinous, whose beautiful image still may be found in works of art in museums around the world, finds a voice of his own at last.

My Review:
Though slim, this novel is surprisingly thorough in the story of Antinous. Set in the second century A.D., Eromenos recounts Antinous' short life from a young boy living in rural Bithynia to his untimely death.

I loved the richness of the details in this book right from the beginning. Eromenos describes all of the scenery of Antinous' home and travels. I knew very little about this time period or Hadrian's rule. However, without knowing much beforehand, I fell into the story and felt like I knew Antinous personally.
Antinous meets Emperor Hadrian on one of Hadrian's tours through his empire. Shortly thereafter, Antinous is invited to study at Hadrian's school in Rome. Antinous excells in his studies, causing Hadrian to notice him once again. As Antinous deals with the social stratification that exists within Rome and especially Hadrian's court, Hadrian begins to pay more attention to Antinous. Antinous learns that Hadrian's current favorite young boy is getting too old to be considered a favorite anymore.

After some time, Hadrian invites Antinous on a trip. Antinous learns on that trip what it means to be one of Hadrian's eromenos. From then on Antinous works to figure out what his role is in Hadrian's court. He doesn't want to abuse any power he may be given and he works to stay as Hadrian's favorite while maintaining his own self-respect
.
When Antinous starts to grow too old to stay in the same position in Hadrian's court, he must decide what the rest of his life will be like. How will he take care of himself and who will stay on his side. Antinous' decision is poignant and beautifully written.
While I highly enjoyed Eromenos, I want to know more about the people surrounding Antinous, especially Hadrian. The story is told only through Antinous, who has to spend most of the time figuring out life at court by himself. I want the whole story and what the other characters thought and how they viewed Antinous. Therefore, I enjoyed this novel as a microcosm on Antinous' life but it did leave me wanting more because I felt there was more to the story.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I received one copy of Eromenos for free to review. This did not affect my review in any way and I did not receive any other compensation for my review.

To see the other reviews on tour, go here
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Book Review: Claude & Camille by Stephanie Cowell

Claude & Camille

By: Stephanie Cowell

Pub. Date: April 2011

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Format: Paperback, 330pp  

ISBN-13: 9780307463227

ISBN: 0307463222

Source: Library copy

Synopsis:

Sometimes he dreamt he held her; that he would turn in bed and she would be there. But she was gone and he was old. Nearly seventy. Only cool paint met his fingers. “Ma très chère . . .” Darkness started to fall, dimming the paintings. He felt the crumpled letter in his pocket. “I loved you so,” he said. “I never would have had it turn out as it did. You were with all of us when we began, you gave us courage. These gardens at Giverny are for you but I’m old and you’re forever young and will never see them. . . .”

In the mid-nineteenth century, a young man named Claude Monet decided that he would rather endure a difficult life painting landscapes than take over his father’s nautical supplies business in a French seaside town. Against his father’s will, and with nothing but a dream and an insatiable urge to create a new style of art that repudiated the Classical Realism of the time, he set off for Paris.

But once there he is confronted with obstacles: an art world that refused to validate his style, extreme poverty, and a war that led him away from his home and friends. But there were bright spots as well: his deep, enduring friendships with men named Renoir, Cézanne, Pissarro, Manet – a group that together would come to be known as the Impressionists, and that supported each other through the difficult years. But even more illuminating was his lifelong love, Camille Doncieux, a beautiful, upper-class Parisian girl who threw away her privileged life to be by the side of the defiant painter and embrace the lively Bohemian life of their time.

His muse, his best friend, his passionate lover, and the mother to his two children, Camille stayed with Monet—and believed in his work—even as they lived in wretched rooms, were sometimes kicked out of those, and often suffered the indignities of destitution. She comforted him during his frequent emotional torments, even when he would leave her for long periods to go off on his own to paint in the countryside.

But Camille had her own demons – secrets that Monet could never penetrate, including one that when eventually revealed would pain him so deeply that he would never fully recover from its impact. For though Camille never once stopped loving the painter with her entire being, she was not immune to the loneliness that often came with being his partner.

A vividly-rendered portrait of both the rise of Impressionism and of the artist at the center of the movement, Claude and Camille is above all a love story of the highest romantic order. (Image and synopsis from goodreads.com)

My Review:

Claude & Camille is the story of young Claude Monet, the famous impressionist painter. First, I'd like to say that while I would not consider myself that knowledgeable about art, Monet is my favorite artist and Impressionism my favorite style. I love the Impressionist gallery in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Monet, along with his friends Bazille, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Pissarro, and Cezanne, are poor starving artists. They believe in their artistic vision even though no one else is the least bit interested in their work. They are considered too modern and are often turned down at the yearly Salon art exhibit in Paris. Many of them have left their families and potentially stable futures in pursuit of the ever unstable world of art.

Along the way, Claude Monet meets Camille Doncieux, a privileged girl already expecting a proposal from a  well-to do gentleman. Claude and Camille throw caution to the wind and fall in love with each other and move in together. This book shows their relationship and how two people who truly care for each other can still go through both good times and bad times. Their bad times are often compounded by their continual lack of money, Claude's artistic depressive episodes, and Camille's manic-depressive disorder (although never diagnosed, this book makes it clear that she has MDD).

I think Cowell's best aspect in this book was accurately portraying life. As I've grown up, I've realized that life is not easy and there will always be hard times and hard decisions but there will also be good times that make life worth living. Cowell portrays that through Claude and Camille. They have their own very hard times and they make mistakes but they also have their great times in life. They also have their days where they are just living and going through life.

I enjoyed all the aspects of Money's life and I particularly enjoyed learning more about my favorite artist. I hadn't realized how close he had been to his fellow contemporary artists. It was fun to see all of them interact and grow up.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Book Review: Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

By: Nina Sankovitch

Pub. Date: June 2011

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Format: Hardcover , 256pp  

ISBN-13: 9780061999840

ISBN: 0061999849

Source: Borrowed from the library

Synopsis:

Nina Sankovitch has always been a reader. As a child, she discovered that a trip to the local bookmobile with her sisters was more exhilarating than a ride at the carnival. Books were the glue that held her immigrant family together. When Nina's eldest sister died at the age of forty-six, Nina turned to books for comfort, escape, and introspection. In her beloved purple chair, she rediscovered the magic of such writers as Toni Morrison, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ian McEwan, Edith Wharton, and, of course, Leo Tolstoy. Through the connections Nina made with books and authors (and even other readers), her life changed profoundly, and in unexpected ways. Reading, it turns out, can be the ultimate therapy.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair also tells the story of the Sankovitch family: Nina's father, who barely escaped death in Belarus during World War II; her four rambunctious children, who offer up their own book recommendations while helping out with the cooking and cleaning; and Anne-Marie, her oldest sister and idol, with whom Nina shared the pleasure of books, even in her last moments of life. In our lightning-paced culture that encourages us to seek more, bigger, and better things, Nina's daring journey shows how we can deepen the quality of our everyday lives—if we only find the time.

My Review:

Nina Sankovitch's Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is a wonderful memoir on her year of reading one book every day for a year. Following the death of her sister, Nina felt her life becoming a downward spiral as she tried to cram everything in to live for both herself and her sister. She tried giving everything that she could to support all of her family around her but it was too much.

Finally, she realized that she needed to slow down and give herself time to reflect and accept life as it is... leading her to start her mission of making reading book her work for a year. With a lot of planning and support from her family, Nina did just that and a lot more on the way.

Blending her love of books with her own life's journey, Nina's story is a great reminder that life is both great and terrible and sometimes you just need to stop, calm down, and reflect on it all. I loved how Nina brought in the stories that she was reading and specific quotes that she found inspiring. I especially liked the final chapter where she relates her year's journey to her father's time off in life and how important the past year had been to her.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair has completely reaffirmed my love of books and the importance that I place on them. I also made a list of books that I want to read now because of how they were described in Purple Chair. I found Nina's story to be very relatable and I hope that when tragedy and grief strike my family, which is inevitable at some point, that I remember her story and find my own comfort from the pages of beloved books.

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Want to learn more? Check out Nina Sankovitch's website!

Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By: Stieg Larsson

Pub. Date: November 2010

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Format: Hardcover, 465 pages 

Series: Millennium Trilogy Series

ISBN-13: 9780307595577

ISBN: 0307595579

Source: Personal Copy

Synopsis:

Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

My Review:

Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a thrilling novel set in Sweden (it is a Swedish book that has been translated into English). The original title of the book was Men Who Hate Women. In many ways I like the original title a lot more because it makes a lot of the points in the book even stronger. There are many instances of violence and force used against women throughout the novel, including Swedish crime statistics of violence against women that are found in the beginning of every chapter. However, the new title definitely fits in better with the series as a whole.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about a disgraced journalist who ends up leaving Stockholm for a remote area of Sweden to write a biography of and investigate the family of Henrik Vanger. Vanger is the head of a once very prominent business family. Although their business is now slowing down they still remain a large corporation. As Blomkvist, the journalist, begins the biography he slowly learns more about an unsolved mystery in the family.

Ultimately, Blomkvist needs more help, which leads him to bring in Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo.  As they unfurl the family mystery, danger creeps closer to them.

Stieg Larsson is an excellent story-teller. I was entertained the whole time, even if I was also disturbed by the actions of some of the characters. I still always wanted to know more. I look forward to the second installment in the trilogy, The Girl who Played with Fire.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars