A Thousand Splendid Suns
Ratings534
Average rating4.3
What to say? I guess, if you have ever made an assumption about the way people live their lives based on snippets you see on the news you should read this book. Then open your eyes but more importantly your heart.
I think this (and Kite Runner also) is an important book to read. While still fiction, Khaled Hosseini does a good job at painting how awful life has been for citizens living in conflict regions like Afghanistan. It isn't a happy book, not even in the slightest, but it is a powerful one.I think my only other comment to add about this book (because other reviews have said much the same things I feel about it) is that I think I prefer [b:The Kite Runner 77203 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1579036753l/77203.SY75.jpg 3295919] to this one just a little bit. While everything included in A Thousand Splendid Suns is legitimate and believable, it's extremely unrelenting and feels like it could have been better paced. I don't remember The Kite Runner feeling like you're constantly sliding from one bad moment to the next like how this book felt.It's still an extremely good book, highly recommend.
A book coma after so long.
Cannot seem to get the characters out of my head.
For the longest time I had avoided reading this one.
Why?
Because knowing Hosseini's writing, I knew its going to stay with me for the rest of my life, as the Kite Runner had.
His characters are beautifully innocent and yet all knowing. He draws you in with the smooth flow of his words and then the next moment, you can hardly believe what you have just read. Clutching the book as you silently weep for a fictional character.
His words have power to move even the toughest of hearts.
Forever a fan.
PS.
Is it even a Khalid Hosseini book if it doesn't make you cry?
Brutal, heartbreaking stories of people in a warred country always made my eyes tear up.
“A Thousand Splendid Suns” told us stories about 3-4 generations that started from ordinary life became a wartime life. Life itself became hard and harder to live, especially for women.
While comparing to the Kite Runner this book seems more feminine to me. the storyline may cause the readers felt uneasy reading through the domestic violence we're not used to.
So this is real-life stories that can happen to anybody living in wartime.
“Before they led her out, Mariam was given a document, told to sign beneath her statement and the mullah's sentence. As the three Taliban watched, Mariam wrote it out, her name—the meem, the reh, the yah, and the meem—remembering the last time she'd signed her name to a document, twenty-seven years before, at Jalil's table, beneath the watchful gaze of another mullah.”
Excerpt From: Khaled Hosseini. “A Thousand Splendid Suns.”
This paragraph was the one I think it showed how women in Islamic society was. She is somebody just two times in her own life the first life is when she's married the other time is when she died.
This was an amazing and deeply touching read. I was born in 1975 and, being the son of rather politically interested parents, I remember the Soviet-Afghan War and the Mujahideen and their respective roles in Afghanistan since about 1985. I intellectually knew about the atrocities committed during that war, during the in-fighting among the Afghan warlords and, later, by the Taliban. This book, though, tells the very personal story of Mariam, the illegitimate daughter of Jalil Khan, a prosperous business man from Heart, and Nana, one of his servants. While the early parts focus entirely on Mariam who desperately wants to be accepted by her father, we later get to know Laila and her parents (and a few other very memorable characters) as well. Mariam's and Laila's ways cross when they both get married to Rasheed, the owner of a small shoe shop in Kabul. When I started reading “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, I thought it was a bit slow but when I noticed I had finished about 75% of the book in one marathon reading session without even noticing the time passing, I understood how wrong I was. I had practically been glued to my Kindle even though reading what both women suffer through was, at times, hard. I simply couldn't help myself, though, because this book tells of suffering but is definitely not about it. It's in fact a very personal history of its heroines, their loving, their losses, their children, and families. Neither Mariam nor Laila ever give up; they do what they have to do (and sometimes that's horrible) and still manage to retain their humanity. Since I always at least roughly knew what year I got told about, I could compare at which stage of my life I was at the time. It was shocking to read how people literally got shredded to pieces by rockets in Afghanistan while I was getting married and our first child was born. I did not only intellectually know what had happened but I felt like I actually got a glimpse of the personal tragedies. “A Thousand Splendid Suns” pretty much lets those splendid suns shine on those two women as fictional examples of what actually happened to thousands of Mariams and Lailas in Afghanistan. Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram
What a gorgeous, heartbreaking book. Just beautiful. There's so much here about the history of Afghanistan and the changing roles of women and interpersonal relationships. Just wonderful and sad.
What a huge disappointment and a sad follow up to the magnificent Kite Runner. This book is totally made up of cliches and plot turns from the worst soap operas. Why oh why? Very little can be saved, but IMHO the book clings to two stars because I learned more about Afghan history and women conditions. It is too bad that these important aspects are packaged into this weak and trivial novel.
Counting this as my Afghanistan book around the world.
Really well written and well executed novel. Extremely powerful tale of female friendship, solidarity, and selflessness.
One of those books that are really depressing but really beautiful at the same time.
still to this day i have never ugly cried reading a book like i did reading this one
Beautiful. The portrayal of older days of Afghanistan before it turned into a pile of ash and rubble. The story of two brave women who find comfort in each other amidst all the terror surrounding them.
I really am in the minority again. I thought I would give Khaled Hosseini another chance after disliking The Kite Runner so immensely and while I did think this was a better story I wouldn't recommend it as I book I enjoyed.
Maybe because it's a book chronicling how horrible life for women was/is in Afghanistan in the 80's through basically the present. The unfairness of their lives and how easily choice and freedom is taken from them. Or maybe it's because even though the book focuses mostly on the two women, I never felt like they were real people. They weren't fleshed out, they were simply characters. They could have been anyone.
Beautifully written story about the hardships women face living in Afghanistan. Even better than The Kite Runner.
Hosseini edifies with his historically accurate backgrounds, and knowledge of Afghan culture. He moves the reader with poignant prose about the sacrifices parents make in the hopes of giving their children a better life than their own.
In this, just his second book, Hosseini has become a must read.
I think this novel surpasses Hosseini earlier work, Kite Runner. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a heart-wrenching story against a backdrop of Soviet and US interventions and the response to these interventions by Afghan warlords.
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.
This book is going to stay with me. It's such a moving story that draws you in, makes you a part of it. The writing is simple, yet I felt immersed in the lives of Mariam and Laila. Having finished the book, I feel a little like I'm parting ways with a good friend I haven't gotten to know as well as I'd hoped to. And as I've said before, that's how you know you've read a good book.
The fact that the things that happen in the book is an all too real reality for some, only makes it an even more emotional read. I'm glad to get a glimpse of what life was/is like for women in the middle east. God be with them.
Another good read. I highly recommend this one.
A powerful and heartbreaking tale of two women struggling to survive and find happiness during the most tumultuous periods of Afghanistan. With war raging outside, Mariam and Laila faced an even more brutal existence within their own homes. The novel serves not only as a tale of caution, but also as a testament of the ability to persevere in horrifying circumstances.
This book makes you appreciate the freedoms we enjoy. Being able to work, to laugh in public, to dance. Wonderful story - i enjoyed it more then The Kite Runner.
This is one of those books that are so intense that reading them consumes you. By the time you are done with this book, you will put it down feeling some part of you was taken away and some of the book put back in.
First of all, it is beautifully written. Khaled Hosseini's writing is pure and - although I hate the cliche - it feels like it comes straight from the heart. It's so unpretentious and kind.
Secondly, the characters. The way they develop throughout the book, they take a life of their own. You find yourself becoming anxious at various points in the book, almost holding the breath back in until you're sure the characters are all right. That's powerful story telling right there.
What I also liked about reading this book is that it gave me new insight into the Afghanistan culture. This is my second Khaled Hosseini book, so I had something already to start off with, but it was interesting to get another perspective nevertheless. I've always enjoyed learning about other cultures all that I can, so that is an added bonus.
This is also one of the books to have made me cry. And when that happens, you know you're reading a good book.