A Thousand Splendid Suns

If I had to describe this book in three words it would be heartbreaking, beautiful, and powerful.

Readers around the world have called "A Thousand Splendid Suns" their “favorite book ever,” and “a must read.” For that reason, I bought and read it. I would not have done so had I known that it consists of 400 pages of violence, abuse, and victimization—primarily of women and children. The author has created strong, well-developed characters and is a great storyteller, but I knew enough about misery and suffering without having read this account of culturally- and governmentally-approved violence against women of all social classes. Any reader who wants to understand the recent history of Afghanistan can learn much from this book. The author, himself a refugee from the horrors of his native country, describes well the many factions engaging in the warfare. One of his final statements sums up this history and the book itself—“Every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief.”

No matter how many books I read, I always think of this one and always compare them all to this one. It’s absolute perfection. I didn’t know a soul can hurt but this story showed me that it can.

What a story. The imagery was excellent, the characters so strong and powerful. I read this story without knowing what I was getting myself into and I’m glad that I finally got around to it.

One of my favs.

This is a great novel, it’s a must read. The book was in great shape, absolutely a winner.

This is a very good book I would recommend reading

Never have I ever read anythin g like that in my line. It's crippling to the core. Worth every letter

This is a gem. I was consumed. It's such a wonderful book and beautifully written. The storyline is captivating. I'm extremely happy my book club selected this novel. I look forward to reading this authors other books.

This is my first book/history of Afghanistan. Seen from strong female characters there is 40 years of what life was like. Well worth the read. I am 70 and remember the news about the wars.

I haven't read the book yet but I've read the Kite Runner years ago and loved it! So I'm very confident this author will deliver again! Looking forward to reading his other books.

I finished with goosebumps and tears. This book absolutely moved me. The intensity of some of the scenes (TW: severe domestic abuse), the tragedies of war….you find yourself holding your breath while tearing through the pages hoping that each character will find a happy ending out of all of this.Ooof. I’ll think about this book often.

(Spoiler)This book is like watching history through the eyes of women in Afghanistan. Watching the early prosperity in Afghanistan where women were still subjugated and with men carrying most of the power is eye opening. It just goes to show how much worse things have been there since then. In the beginning of the book, the women were going to college/ working yet the social stigmas around having children outside of wedlock and multiple marriages existed at the same time. Then, the Soviet occupation led to more reforms for women's rights. However, the soviets were quite savage to the people of Afghanistan, which led to Muslim uprising with mujahidin. Unfortunately, it just made things worse for women. No more education for women or working to provide for their children it even got worse as basic rights such as traveling alone were taken away from women. A once peaceful land corrupted by powers that didn't care about the people that inhabited it. Although things don't sound much better right now, I hope Afghanistan sees better days, especially for its women.

I remember the first time I've ever picked up a book by Khaled Hosseini.It was during my sophomore year, and my teacher decided to select The Kite Runner as the book for the class to read. I was utterly thrilled by The Kite Runner as well as devastated because of the clandestine that was hidden from Amir regarding Hassan, the way Assef had treated Hassan in the past and then his son in the same exact manner during the present where luckily, Amir goes back to Kabul and saves the poor child from Assef's wrath.But however, this book is way better than The Kite Runner. This book has made my cry so many times, it's quite unbelievable. This is without a doubt- the best book I've ever read in my whole life! No joke. This book made me feel immensely aggravated and happy at the same exact time. It made me feel immensely aggravated because of the negative treatment of girls and women in Afghanistan and because of the constant hardships and all forms of abuse Mariam, the protagonist had to face from her childhood up until the moment of her death. Mariam had so many hopes and dreams as a child, but unfortunately all these hopes and dreams were crushed by her father Jalil as he gave her away to a misogynistic/sexist forty year old man Rasheed, after her mother committed suicide. Mariam used to live with her mother Nana in a peaceful village near the city Herat. Jalil provided money and food to Mariam and Nana each month. Mariam was the product of an affair between the servant of Jalil's home which was Nana and Jalil. Therefore, she was portrayed as a bastard, or a harami by the Afghan society and mostly by Nana.Nana didn't like idea of Mariam chit chatting with Jalil, and she warned Mariam of him. Nana promised Mariam that one day, she would surely come to see the real face and nature of Jalil. And when this finally would take place, she wouldn't be there to protect her. Finally during her 15th birthday, she abandoned Nana because of Jalil and visited the world outside her home. Therefore, Nana committed suicide. Nana incessantly warned Mariam of the world outside her home in the past. She told her, the outside world was cold, cruel, and bitter. But still, Mariam did not listen nor concur with her. Instead, she wholeheartedly believed in all the false hopes and utter lies which Jalil provided and reassured her with.Jalil and his three wives gave Mariam away because of the dishonor he would come to face from others for keeping a bastard child, a harami in his home. He was a wealthy man. His social status was mandatory to him, not Mariam. Mariam wanted to attend college, gain education and knowledge just as Rasheed's two other daughters. She had hopes and dreams surprisingly, even after the death of her own mother.Mariam was physically tortured by Rasheed almost every single day and every single moment of her life. She grew more and more vulnerable by each day and sadly, she couldn't do anything to defend herself against Rasheed's wrath until Laila was the victim of his abuse. Mariam finally gathered up her courage to stand up against Rasheed and give him the taste of his own medicine, once in for all which made me immensely happy although it brought permanent despair to Mariam...Mariam was executed by the Talibans at the end, but please don't let this intimidate you! Mariam was finally free from the cruel world which she lived in and her memory was preserved by Laila. In a way, Mariam became a part of Laila. Mariam was Laila's courage, Laila's bravery and her will to fight and stand up against all the odds in the world.Oh and also, did I mention that this book has amazing quotes? The quotes are utterly meaningful."At the time, Mariam did not understand. She did not know what this word harami-bastard—meant. Nor was she old enough to appreciate the injustice, to see that it is the creators of the harami who are culpable, not the harami, whose only sin is being born."I will never forget about this book, never. It'll always stay in my heart.

You know you are in the hands of a masterful storyteller when you put a book down only because you have no choice - life drags you away and it's a physical and emotional wrench to let it go, even for a moment. When all you can think as you go about compulsory tasks are the story and the characters. While you are away, you wonder what they are doing, where the narrator is going to take them and you care about their fates deeply. Such is the effect of A Thousand Splendid Suns. The characters live beyond the pages - not merely at the end, but throughout the reading experience, so realistically and gorgeously have they been drawn.Just as the sublime The Kite Runner told the tale of doomed male friendship, ATSS tells the story of two very different Afghani women: Mariam - shy, subservient, filled with self-doubt and yet, despite what life has meted out, is also honest and possessed of an innocence that is both her greatest strength and weakness. Then there is the beautiful, smart and kind Laila. Raised under very different roofs and with different expectations of their future, fate in the form of political and sectarian upheaval throws these women together and what happens before, during and after is heart-wrenchingly bitter-sweet.Hosseini knows not only how to capture the reader's imagination but our hearts as well. Told without sentimentality but nonetheless with an almost unbearable sweetness and pathos, ATSS unapologetically describes what the women of Afghanistan (and many men, children, families and thus communities) were forced to endure. The rampant misogyny, sexism and horrific abuses; terror, hope, the loss, the grind, the joy in the smallest and simplest of things; their constant sacrifices. Their resilience is formidable and humbling; their strength amazing - as is their capacity to forgive. By focussing primarily on Mariam and Laila (and those who play important roles in shaping who and what they become) Hosseini gives us a searing insight into not only the plight of those who are helpless pawns in a brutal battle for control of a weakened state, but Western prejudices, sense of entitlement and misunderstanding as well as revealing the ugliness and terrible beauty of a culture so few of us understand except through snatches from sensationalized news bulletins or from foreign correspondents with a brief to fill. That there are those resistant to as well as complicit in oppression, suffer because of wilful ignorance and the brutality of others; the way in which religion and culture can impose horrific restraints when reduced to power struggles while at the same time gesturing to a proud nobility is evident in the novel. Inevitably, as is the case when religion, sex and gender become politicized, there are scapegoats who pay for the hubris and cruelty of others - for more than a lifetime. The damage inflicted can last for generations.I didn't want this book to end. My heart soared, it plummeted; I gasped, cried, held my breath and as I read felt physically pummelled then embraced, experiencing the 30 years the tale covers as a visceral thing that left me psychologically and imaginatively battered but richer in ways that count. But, I also felt ashamed. Ashamed for thoughts I may have harboured deep down, for prejudices I may not have even realized I held until this novel exposed them to me, and for that, I am grateful.This is a beautiful, deeply moving book that I cannot recommend highly enough. It was a privilege to read and now to share.

Gone are the days that would take me weeks to finish a 400 something page novel. I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns in 3 days. And there is nothing "splendid" in this agonizingly sad, depressing, horror-stricken story of women and children who are brutalized, beaten, and treated worse than animals, with a life that begins depressingly sad and gets progressively worse until you can't take it anymore, but you keep reading because the story telling is brilliant, and you - if not the characters - want some kind of revenge, but the author keeps you hungry, hungry for a simple taste of justice and a simple drop of satisfaction. He keeps driving his mad blood-thirsty wife-beating loathsome male characters - save for one - and you want to tear at them with a knife and finish them off yourself!Sooooooo, as you can see, it was not a happy book, and I'll not read the other stories by Hosseini at this time simply because, like Mariam, the truly sad character, said it so well, "what good does it do?" What good does it do knowing the heart-wrenching brutalities that go on still in the 21st centuries in countries like Afghanistan? What good does it do to know about it? What good is it to witness horribly wrong things from a distance but not be able to help?As for writing style, I loved Hosseini's story telling style. Being from Iran, the Farsi words that he throws at you are from my mother tongue so they had a particularly hard sting and their meaning went deep inside me, awakening distant memories of the horrific government of Iran that has more than its own shares of similar brutalities.Yes, indeed the human spirit does thrive and that is a beautiful thing to see, but oh goodness, if I had to go back, I am not sure I'd read this book to get an example of the human spirit thriving.I struggled between the 3 and 4 stars. Yes the book was GOOD, very good. The writing is exquisite. Sometimes he goes on and on about descriptions that I could care a little less about and I had far less interest in the politics of Afghanistan than I did in the characters in the story so those parts dragged on a bit but still, the story moved forward and kept me hoping against hope that there were be an ounce of happiness reserved for at least one character .....If you want to enter the dark, depressing, and lonesome world of the women in the Islamic regimes such as Iran or Afghanistan, go on and read this .... it will give you more than you bargain for! And remember, this work of fiction might as well be fact. These things do happen to the women in that world all the time.

I weeped at the end of this book. Simply weeped.Before I get into its praises, let's get a few shortcomings out of the way. There are a few aspects to Hosseini's writing style that I'm not fond of, and the same minor complaints I had in The Kite Runner also apply here, except to a lesser degree. He still did some explicit foreshadowing, but only a couple times, and in at least one case, I do think it added a bit of suspense rather than detracted from the current narrative. Later on, when foreshadowed events occured, characters undoubtedly conjured up old memories that reminded the reader that said event was foreshadowed - as if Hosseini didn't trust the reader to be smart enough to remember on his own. But, in most cases, it seemed natural that if these events were really occurring, the characters would remember these old conversations with fondness, regret, or poignancy, so it wasn't really out of line to write about such memories. Overall, I think Hosseini's writing is more developed in this book, and ultimately, my rating of a book depends a great deal on how much of an impression it left on me, which is why I gave this book 5 stars despite these minor annoyances.If The Kite Runner was, in part, a gentle and lovely portrayal of a peaceful, bygone time in Afghanistan history, then A Thousand Splendid Suns is its natural successor, telling intimate stories of women who endured the recent decades of multiple wars that tore the country apart and made it unrecognizable to its own citizens. On one level, this book serves a purpose by informing readers of Afghanistan's political turmoil and the nightmare of living in a war zone. But, it is also a book about motherhood, self-sacrifice, endurance, grace, and unadulterated love for one's homeland.The book is filled with interesting characters. A woman who, to a stranger, may look like the embodiment of weakness and servility, but proves to be a fountain of admirable grace, wisdom, and strength not in spite of, but because of her sufferings. A man who mistreated women with shocking cruelty out of a misguided sense of tradition and conservatism, but also not unintelligent and still capable of affection and tenderness. Another woman who has enormous potential as a child, who is raised to value education above all else, but who must succumb to the draconian laws of the Taliban.I was so invested in the characters that two-thirds of the way through the book, I started to fear that an undesirable conclusion would ruin the book for me. Without giving anything away, I'll say that I loved the ending.

Khaled Hosseini tells a good story, eliciting empathy for both his female main characters while using the recent history of his native country as a backdrop that nourishes while educating his audience about a culture and place of which few have knowledge.Unlike his first novel, "The Kite Runner," "A Thousand Splendid Suns" does not depict an immigrant's journey from a troubled Afghanistan to the melting pot of America a la Elia Kazan's classic "America, America". Instead it focuses on two Afghan women who as contemporaries display vastly different vantage points in terms of their individual gender freedom.Mariam, reared as a harami (illegitimate child) in the smaller village of Herat, lives on the outskirts of town with her mother, fallen woman Nana who succumbed to the attractive Jalil, rich owner of the cinema, husband of three wives and father of nine legitimate children. As a harami, Mariam quickly learns that the world of Herat and her father's smaller privileged universe proffer her only the sad wisdom of rejection and endurance. Married off as a teenager to a 40-something-year-old shoemaker named Rasheed, she finds herself in the large city of Kabul where Rasheed's imposed dress code of the burqa in public becomes an oxymoron of sorts--a comforting form of anonymity after years of self-imposed insecurity and harami notoriety and a convenient cover up for the consequential markings of his anger when she cannot provide him with a child .Not so for Laila, Hosseini's second protagonist. Born in Kabul of educated parents, Laila's potential for success ranks her highly amongst her peers during the pro-woman Communist reign. Always encouraged to pursue her dreams, she finds that only her country's turbulent history encumbers her ambitions. After the Soviet Union's departure from Afghanistan and the mujahedeen infighting for control ensues, a stray rocket blast kills Laila's parents and through a stroke of ill-fate she becomes a member of Rasheed's household, alas her bright future eclipsed by the same dungeon of unenlightenment as that of the hapless Mariam.The beauty of Hosseini's tale comes in his ability to draw the reader into the lives of these two women. Although introduced with a certain amount of predictable melodrama that sweeps us along with the implacable rhythm of a 1970s television mini-series, by the time Laila and Mariam physically unite in Rasheed's household we are sold, living and breathing each and every trial and tribulation. Of these, there are plenty, Hosseini paints a cruel picture of Afghanistan's intolerance towards women during not only the Taliban era, but within the confines of their supposed sanctuary of home. Intensely, we experience the beatings these women routinely receive and cower instinctively as the Taliban patrol wanders the streets of Kabul seeking out stray women to disfigure.Shamelessly, Hosseini's technique relies on the interjection of improbable occurrences that add to the tension on the reader's heartstrings. This is nothing new in literature; Charles Dickens employs the same coincidental manipulations quite successfully in his classic serializations. However implausible, we are absorbed within the pages, reliving in nightmares some of the brutally repugnant scenes of blatant misogyny depicted so vividly in Hosseini's detailed account. We cringe and cry and await retribution. Like "The Tale of Two Cities," we are rewarded with a modern day execution where innocent love and unselfish sacrifice allow another's happiness and ultimately the irrepressible good triumph over the miserably evil.Bottom line? Khaled Hosseini writes well in the female perspective; his account of the fictional Mariam and Laila brings home the abject suffering of the senseless mistreatment of women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. In the telling of their story, he links them with women all over the world through both the small and large events in their lives. Simultaneously, he educates his audience to the history of his native country, the differing racial factions and the indisputable effect of religion and culture on the larger terrain of the soul. Recommended.Diana Faillace Von Behren"reneofc"

Much as in THE KITE RUNNER, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS occasionally suffers from some fairly "high-schoolish" prose and sometimes the plot twists stretch my willingness to suspend disbelief. (Stretch...not break.) KITE RUNNER has one gigantic leap like this in its final third, and so does A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS.I mention these items right up front, because the amount of praise I'd want to heap on this book overall so overwhelms any criticism, I want to make sure everyone understands that Hosseini is not the greatest writer ever. He is, however, a fervent storyteller and deeply immersed in the societies and characters he explores. There is no doubting his commitment to telling a great story and drawing you in. His work is very cinematic (I mean that as a good thing here) because it constantly hurtles forward. The plot moves briskly, but the growth of the characters is just as snappy.In my adult life, I find that I don't have as much time as I'd like to read for pleasure. Often, my reading comes in bed at night, and I fall asleep much sooner than I'd like. Once in awhile, when on an airplane, I'll get to read a bit more...but even then, I drift off or get distracted. Well, this summer, I was on a 4 hour flight, and I read more than half this book in that one sitting, never once tempted to set it aside and rest my eyes. It just blazed ahead and I was fully immersed.Hosseini revisits familiar territory (Afghanistan) but where KITE RUNNER focused on a primarily male experience, and also spent a lot of time in the United States...SUN stays almost entirely in this beleaguered nation, and is viewed through the eyes of two very different and VERY fascinating women. The turns that their lives take are Hosseini's way not only of showing the social evolution (and de-evolution) over the last few decades in Afghanistan, but the political and religious upheavals as well. In the hands of a less-skilled storyteller, it would seem like a dusty and not very clever device. ("Oh look, now that the communists have taken over, let's send one of the characters to a communist run school so we can hear how the Russians did things.") And while intellectually I understand that this is basically what the author is doing...his pacing, his beautifully imagined characters and his obvious love for the nation make the narrative, the "fiction", so very compelling.The book is full of death and sadness. Many events occur which are horrific and not the least bit pleasant for the reader. Yet in the end, it is an amazingly uplifting book. A "happy" ending? I supposed it kinda is...but it is really bittersweet. I closed the book, grateful to have read it...and the best sign of all...wishing I could follow the characters some more.I highly recommend the book, despite the flaws. Also, I think the book could be read and enjoyed by a teen audience as well...much like KITE RUNNER, I believe it could be an important and inspiring book for young people. It would warrant a PG-13 rating, for sure...but the mildly scandalous moments are more than made up by so many uplifting, informative or transporting passages.

At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book as much as The Kite Runner (5 star), and bottome line, I prefer The Kite Runner over this novel. But the story is still very compelling, nonetheless. I actually give it 4 1/2 stars. And I will continue to read Khaled Hossini's future novels.The story builds slowly but steadily for the first half of the novel. It starts with Mariam's life, then switches to Laila's. At first, I didn't get a FULL sense of how hard Mariam's life was with Rasheed, as we were left to imagine a lot for ourselves. Their wasn't a lot of detail or instances of the abuse she suffered, but you knew it was there. That could be either a good or a bad thing, depending how you look at it. Then we go through Laila's somewhat happy childhood. When Laila, through unfortunate circumstances, marries Rasheed, we know her life will never be the same but understand the choice she made. Again, the story seems to build slowly with few instances of the abusive life she lives. But it is within these sparse instances that we get a glimpse of the developing relationship between Mariam & Laila. I will have to admit, that at first I didn't think I cared to deeply for the characters in the story.It wasn't until the birth scene of Laila's son, Zalmai, that you started to get a good sense of how deep Mariam & Laila's relationship had become..... And how much more I cared for these characters. This is where the story starts to take real shape.From this point, you are gripped to read on. Much like in The Kite Runner, you are moved, you feel, you weep for its strength (or weakness) of character which was so delicately laid down before. HERE you get a very good sense of Rasheed's brutality, and the women's suffering and enduring. The apex of the novel is reached 9/10ths of the way through the story. What is left, is the aftermath. Like The Kite Runner, it is also bittersweet.It is very difficult to follow such a hugely popular debut novel like The Kite Runner. For 2 years, I waited patiently for this 2nd one. I am NOT disappointed. It is a good story worth it's own weight. And further more, I learned even MORE about Afghanistan history and turmoil then I did in The Kite Runner. It was relevant to the story but not preachy.