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highly recommended |
Great second novel 
The kite runner was one of the best novels I ever read. A thousand splendid suns comes close, but falls a little short. Which is like saying that Tiger Woods had an off year in 2007. Anything this man writes is worth reading.
Amazingly told...a must read! 
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a better book than the kite runner in my opinion. The pages exude genuine feeling...it is amazing how the author captures the full sentiments of betrayal with his candid descriptions. This is the heartbreaking tale of two womem, both struggling to find their way in a world that seems bent on caging them in. Despite the odds, they manage to find their escape from hardship in their mutual friendship. Beautiful... a must read!
Overwhelming
I first listened to CD's of this book on a very long and boring car trip. Of course I had already read and immensely enjoyed The Kite Runner. Well, this is even better, although somewhat more harrowing. It shares the same elegance of writing style, surprising, when one considers that English is not Hosseini's first language. The local color of Afghanistan is fascinating, but more interesting yet is the detail of injustices to women that is so unlike that which exists in Western society. Even though the book is, I presume, fiction, there is nothing self-serving or deliberately sensational about it. To say it is merely a good read is to do it a dis-service. Marvellous!
A sad burqa "romance" with a semi-happy ending
I enjoyed the book. Despite having a mostly sad story line, the two female main characters demonstrated courage, love, and hope in an otherwise brutal and oppressive marriage. This book is not for children since it frequently describes sexual encounters in a somewhat graphic, though tasteful, manner.
No need to recount the story since other reviewers have already done that. I'll just express some thoughts that occurred to me as I read the book:
1) The book describes at least two lines of Islamic thought. One is the oppressive, brutal Taliban variety that treats women harshly, prohibits them from study or work, and views them as male property. The other is a more open minded, progressive variety that encourages women to learn and work. The author clearly prefers the progressive variety. The story shows the danger of having zealots in control of a country. We're truly fortunate to be in a country where one ideology or religion does not control us, particularly an oppressive ideology like the Talibans.
2) The story has two women who grew up without having to wear burqas, marrying a man of the repressive variety who required them to wear a burqa in public. Having lived in Afghanistan for several months, this brought back memories of the women wearing burqas, how uncomfortable they seemed, and the double standard. It reminded me of a time at a lake near San Antonio where I saw three Muslim women sitting on the beach in direct summer sun (very hot) wearing black abayas, waiting and watching while their husbands wearing swim shorts and no shirt played in the water with the kids. It escapes me how some Muslim men don't see how cruel and unfair this double standard is. They claim the cover is for purity, yet if that were true the males would have to cover themselves as well to maintain their purity. Yet, nowhere do we see male burqas or abayas.
3) Most of the story line was about a brutal wife beater. For the wife abusers, the burqa is a great way to conceal bruises.
4) Women under the Taliban had no rights and that is true in many middle eastern cultures still. I'm glad our western cultures got past the "women as chattel" concept. We can only hope the Afghan culture and the rest of the middle east will wake up and stop oppressing half their populations.
5) The Taliban sense of justice is truly warped. In the story, a husband beats a woman, another woman tries to stop him from doing that and ends up killing him to protect both their lives....so the Taliban sentence HER to death because women have no right to disobey their husbands. Scary. Although this story is fiction, it is based on reality.
6) The book reminded me of a Japanese-made film about the life of a woman and her daughter struggling to live under the Taliban. Saw it in Kabul but can't remember the name. Very powerful and depressing movie. It brings the evilness of the Taliban into crystal clear focus, as does this book.
7) The father of one of the women had ostracised her because she was a "harami" (bastard child of his). He refused to acknowledge her and instead married her off to a brutal man far away. At the end, he attempts to gain forgiveness, but it's too late. Made me think of the importance of caring for our children and ensuring they know we love them.
8) The tension that exists in Afghan culture between arranged marriages and marriages desired by both parties is shown. Another example of how the culture is behind the times and inconsiderate of the feelings of people wanting marriage. Too often, the reality there is that a young woman is married off to an old guy that she finds repulsive and, well, old...and often she knows a young man she finds attractive, yet is unable to marry.
9) The ending was powerful with Laila going to the birthplace of her deceased co-wife to honor her and feel connection to the woman.
reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
"Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love. 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. A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love."
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based on 1295 reviews
