A Thousand Splendid Suns

fionag11@bookwyrm.social reviewed A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

None

5 stars

Wow, yeah. This book is hard to read, because of the domestic abuse, but if you can stand it, it is also such a fascinating window into the last few decades of Afghanistan's history, powerful, full of tension. You will be rooting for these two women and looking forward to the liberation of Kabul as much as they did - will it be in time to save them? Even more poignant given that we have now gone back to the days of the Taliban. OK, don't despair, there are light moments! - one detail that sticks with me is when the Titanic craze hits Taliban-controlled Kabul - Titanic burkhas!

Jamal reviewed A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini

What am I supposed to take away?

2 stars

Content warning Spoilers ahead!

I read this on the recommendation of a woman. Apparently, in her circle, this book is quite popular for the way it shows the hidden injustices against women and the weight they carry in society. To these points I can agree, and I see why someone can have an emotional moment reading this book.

For me however, I found the characters to be mostly flat, and the plot just depressing. I had to force myself to finish it when I was halfway through. The pile-on of horror did not make me think this or feel that, it purely led to disgust and boredom.

One positive take away is the historical context, which made the chronology of events memorable.

I suspect that I was not the target audience for this book. I saw that its fans fall into two camps: those that like it for the historical and humanized look at Afghanistan, and those that related to the women's perspectives in that society. The former did not have that wow effect on me given that I was a bit more knowledgeable on the topic, and the latter fell a bit short of capturing me given the flatness of the characters and the extremes of violence.

Stephanie Jane reviewed A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Very readable

4 stars

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 …

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.