Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

The first half of this story was gripping. I liked the way the author switched between a first person contemporary point of view to a third person 1942-era point of view. Both central characters were evenly presented. I thought the third person point of view was especially effective since the reader had no way of knowing what happened to Sarah, the central character. (as opposed to knowing that a first person narrator survives the events she is tellign about) The entire story was a different perspective from other Holocaust stories: this one was about the French police rounding up Jewish families in central Paris. Although the characters are fictitious, the events are rooted in accurate French history. The cover of the book touts it as an "international beseller." I was surprised to read that the book was originally written in English---the vocabulary was simple, as was most of the sentence structure. There were a few grammatical errors, which I had attributed to a poor edior. However, the simple vocabulary and simple sentence structure could be that of a non-native English speaker. I would like to read something that DeRosnay wrote in French to see if her style is significantly different.
It did seem like the author lost control of the story in the second half of the book. It made sense to stop telling the third person account of Sarah and switch to only the first person account of Julia (who tells the story on the 60th anniversary of the French roundup). However, when Julia discovers the full truth of what happened to Sarah, it feels like too neat of a conclusion. It isn't quite a deus ex machina in the classical sense, but the author does insert a few details that seem too convenient.
Overall however, I couldn't help thinking about that key and the secret that surrounded it. It isn't a story to enjoy, but you can certainly enjoy the book.