REVIEW: #9 A Thousand Splendid Suns

Synopsis: (Taken from GoodReads)

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.

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.

Review:

I don’t know why I decided to read this novel. It is not a genre or a storyline that would initially attract me. Why I ended up deciding to read it, I have not the faintest clue. However – once I did, I could not put this phenomenal novel  down and finished it in less than 24 hours. Hosseini paints a brilliant picture of life in war-torn Afghanistan- a life I never would have imagined or could relate to. Quickly you find yourself caring very deeply for these characters and hoping that somehow, someday – they will find happiness and safety in their own homes.

The story begins with a young Miriam, a “bastard child” hidden away in her father’s life like a shameful secret. Her mother, depressed by the life handed to her, treats Miriam like disease – showering her with guilt, obscenities, and fear. Miriam understands that she has no one to love her, but young and naive, she has all the love in the world to give and searches for that love within her father. But – is this search for love worth it?

We are introduced into the polygamous life of Afghanistan families, the shame women must live in by showing their eyes only to their husband (even though he can show his eyes to as many women as he shall wish) and the fear women live with on a daily basis.  The struggles to survive, to love, and to learn while having no independence or free will to do so.

Further in the story we are introduced to a younger character, Laila – who is growing up in the midst of a changing world and life in Afghanistan.  These two women come together in unfortunate circumstances and develop a friendship based on mutual respect, and the eagerness to love – and the want of survival.

I found this novel incredibly deep and touching. I don’t believe I ever even remotely understood how bad it is over in Afghanistan until I read this book, which I feel is somewhat of an insight into the lives so different from our very own.  Having decided to pick up this novel and read was probably one of the best choices I have made this week.

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