A Thousand Splendid Suns

It was a nice story but after hearing/reading so much praise for Hosseini's books I have to say I was disappointed. Instead of being immersed in the story, I found myself accurately predicting what was going to happen 50 pages later. Maybe I've read too many books like this one. Maybe I've watched too many soaps. Either way, for awhile I thought I'd read the book before - just change the names. I kept thinking Laila's parents were too perfect. Something had to happen to them; Something had to create drama in her life. Sure enough. Drama provided via death. The moment the man showed up to tell Laila that Tariq was dead all while making a big production of his illness, I practically said out loud “Nope, not dead” and knew that Rasheed had something to do with all of it. Pages later, my prediction was correct.

Also found many of the characters to be rather flimsy and underdeveloped. The big bad of the story was literally big and bad. The damaged but can't go wrong hero was just that. The women were either young and headstrong or old and complacent. No shades of grey.

On the plus side, the story moved rather quickly and did give the reader a glimpse into the culture and war torn world.