A thousand splendid suns

I first read A Thousand Splendid Suns just over a decade ago (according to Goodreads). I remember reading it in a Scottish holiday chalet, having borrowed it from their library, and being happy that it is such a fast read because I needed to finish before it was time to leave! I loved the story then, as I did this time around, however I notice that I have matured as a reader over the past ten years because I wasn't as blindly impressed.

Following in the wake of Hosseini's lauded novel The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns focuses on the female experience in Afghanistan. I don't think it has anywhere near the same depth though. The story zips along at a good pace and, don't get me wrong, this is a very readable novel. I easily got caught up in Mariam and Laila's lives, feeling sorrowful or angry on their behalf as they are pulled from pillar to post seemingly without being allowed to make any decisions for themselves. Mariam and Laila suffer greatly through their lives yet always seem to remain dignified and almost noble, and I felt the male characters stayed rather flat. Rasheed in basically brutish and Tariq is nice. Hosseini has obviously written with a Western audience in mind so, disappointingly, I didn't feel I got much detail of Afghan culture other than those aspects depicting female oppression and I wanted more. I would describe A Thousand Splendid Suns as the fast food of Middle Eastern literature. It's great while I was reading, but turned out ultimately to be unsatisfying.