Book 64: A Thousand Splendid Suns

NUMBER: 64
TITLE: A Thousand Splendid Suns
AUTHOR: Khaled Hosseini
STARTED:November 12, 2007
FINISHED: November 16, 2007
PAGES: 372
GENRE: Fiction

FIRST SENTENCE: Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the word harami.

SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.

REASON FOR READING: I enjoyed Hosseini's first novel, and my interest was even more piqued when I heard him talk at the National Book Festival a few years back.

THOUGHTS: In the tradition of his first novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini has managed to craft a narrative of relationships that simply sucks the reader into the story. I can't wax poetic about Hosseini's writing style, but his method of storytelling is completely enveloping. Even if Hosseini had decided to set his story in another time or place, the relationships of the main characters would still have been powerful. In placing his story of family in the midst of revolutionary and war-torn Afghanistan, Hosseini creates an unforgettable tale.

Hosseini's skills are best scene in his characterizations. The female leads, Mariam and Laila, come alive. A Thousand Splendid Suns reads almost like a memoir it feels so real. The power struggles and created familial relationships in this novel evolve naturally, without being forced to work to the author's plot. That's what makes this book create such a personal emotional connection with the reader. It just is. There is no forcing of the story, no coercing of sympathies and empathies. A Thousand Splendid Suns is, at it's basic essence, the story of two women try to make a family and survive under some of the harshest of living conditions.

The one real downside I found with this novel was it's predictability. There were no shocking moments. The book may evolve naturally, but Hosseini seems to have the tendency to rely on plot and character conventions. I wanted to be surprised and I did not get that with this book. Even the Big Twist feel flat.

Even with those faults, it was nice to read an author who did not have a sophomore slump. This book was just as good, if not better, than The Kite Runner.


RATING: 7/10 [Very Good]