Hachette Livre

Hachette Livre Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. This book is composed of two interwoven threads: Sarah’s story in 1942 and Julia’s quest in 2002. What are the strengths and drawbacks of this narrative form? Which ‘voice’ did you prefer and why?
  2. What different feelings does Sarah experience throughout the trauma of the round-up and its aftermath? How do you think you would have reacted as a ten-year old child?
  3. How does Julia Jarmond consider France and the French? Do you agree with her?
  4. How would you characterise Julia and Bertrand's marriage and how does Julia's character evolve over the course of the novel?
  5. How does Julia’s daughter Zoë help and support her mother? How does she echo the other little girl in the story, Sarah?
  6. This novel is built around several family secrets. What are these secrets? Was Julia right to go so far? Is it sometimes better not to know?
  7. Julia discovers disturbing events concerning French collaboration with the Nazis during the war. Did you learn of any historical events you previously did not know about? Which ones struck you the most?
  8. What do you imagine happens after the end of the novel? What do you think Julia’s life will be like now? What has she learnt?
  9. Many readers were moved to tears by certain passages in this book. Discuss whether this was your case, or not, and which were the passages that moved you and why.
  10. The rue de Saintonge apartment is a key element to this story, bringing past and present together through a secret tragedy. Discuss how you would feel living in such a place. Do you think walls remember?

Current Reading Group Titles

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  2. Radiance by Shaena Lambert
  3. Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon
  4. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
  5. Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
  6. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
  7. Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
  8. How To Talk to a Widower by Jonathan Tropper
  9. Still Waters by Camilla Noli
  10. Wives of the East Wind by Liu Hong
  11. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
  12. The Keep by Jennifer Egan
  13. The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
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  15. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
  16. April in Paris by Michael Wallner
  17. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
  18. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  19. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
  20. Red River by Lalita Tademy
  21. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
  22. Rosetta by Barbara Ewing
  23. The Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin
  24. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
  25. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell