Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay, was a recommendation from my mother. My mother is a sucker for tearjerkers, so I knew going in that it would probably make me cry. But before I could get into the story, I first had to get past the grammar issues and the bad editing, and -- my number one pet peeve with all books I read -- the fact that the main character is a writer.

Before I go any further, let me just say that it's my opinion that there are two types of authors in this world: those who write in order to tell a story, and those who tell a story in order to write. Ms. De Rosnay is a member of the latter group. I still enjoy so-so stories written by great writers, but I much prefer great stories written by so-so writers.

This is not meant to down-play the seriousness of the topic, of course. The things that were done to the Jews cannot ever be forgiven. And the way the author is able to tell the story from a child's point of view is enlightening and endearing, but the rest seems forced, uninteresting, and predictable.

Also, I'm baffled by the book cover. The children in the book are 10 and 4 and have blond hair, but the children on the cover look more like 6 and 5 and are obviously brunette. The setting also is confusing, since they are not royalty and do not live in a castle. If they had asked my opinion, which they did not, I would have suggested they use a picture of an old cupboard key as the book cover. It almost feels like the book cover they used was a mistake -- intended for a different book. Maybe there's a book out there about two royal children, with a picture of an old cupboard key on the cover.