Author: Khaled Hosseini
# of Pages: 420 (paperback)
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.
Review: This was so much better than I thought it was going to be.
I was apprehensive to read this book because it takes place amongst all of the politics of the Middle East. As someone who is unfamiliar with much of the culture there as well as not being well-versed in the political situation in Afghanistan, I worried that this would be a difficult read for me.
However, since the book begins from the perspective of young Mariam, the book eases the reader into the setting and the cultural norms. The story switches between the third person POV of Mariam and Laila as their lives become intertwined, which is usually disruptive to the flow of the story but was not as detrimental to the story as it usually.
A Thousand Splendid Suns reminded a lot of Pachinko (a story spanning different generations, although ATSS did not span nearly as many as Pachinko) and All the Light We Cannot See (two tragic lives coming together amidst war and devastation). Although perhaps not as moving to me as these other books due to its less effective storytelling tactics, ATSS had me emotionally engaged every step of the way. I would highly recommend this book!
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