Sarah's Key.

So we read the book Sarah's Key for book club this month, and we were suppose to meet yesterday, but the snowstorm put a hitch in things and a lot of the girls weren't able to make it.  So instead of talking about the book, I figured I would write about it.  

To be fair, I thought it was a good book.  But to be honest, it didn't quite end the way I wanted it to.  But then again there were so many bits in the book that I wish would have turned out differently.  And throughout the entire book I kept attempting to predict what was going to happen from page to page, and the more pages I read, the more I realized just how wrong my predictions were.   

The book switches from 1942 to 2002 and it follows the life of Sarah,  a ten year-old girl who is  arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup and Julia Jarmond, an American woman living in France who is assigned the task of writing an article about the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup.  And according to Goodreads, "Through Julia's 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."

I found little bits within the pages of the book that made me really think about some things in my own life.  One of the main characters, Julia Jarmond, longs for Paris before even having been there, and this longing reminded me of my own longing for Africa.  And it just got me thinking …how many people long for a place they have never even been to?  Is it common?  Rare?  

So Julia is an American married to a french man, and they are living in Paris.  Early on in the book she writes about the term The American.  Everyone always refers to her as The American.  And even though she has lived in France for numerous years, and she feels France is more her home than the States, she can't seem to escape the fact that she will always be The American - the Other.  

I really identified with her thoughts on this one because I too will always be The American.  That title is simply branded across my forehead for the world to see.  Don't get me wrong it's not a terrible title to bear, but it is when you are trying to fit into another culture in another country and everyone labels you before you even have a chance to tell them otherwise.  

I love being married to Peter and I love the exoticism of his Irishness.  But the truth is sometimes those small cultural differences are hard, and when you marry someone with a different nationality they will never be fully you and you will never be fully them.  And instead of dwelling on that, you must embrace it, but sometimes it is hard.  Sometimes you may get tired of having to explain yourself and your accent to people and sometimes you get tired of being the other.  Sometimes you just want to fit in, but as The American in Ireland or The Irish in America - you will always be the other.

So read the book - it is a great book club book!  And I am sure some great conversations will come out of reading it - or so I think, so please remember to take my thoughts with a grain of salt!!