Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini
Published by Riverhead Books
Publication Date May 22, 2007
Source: Library
Genres: General Fiction
Goodreads

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

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.

I picked this up at my most resent visit to the library and was excited that it wasn’t checked out for once. As this was considered a “new release” at the library I could only check it out for a week.  A first was worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish it in time. but those thoughts where soon pushed out of my mind.  As I began reading A Thousand Splendid Suns it warped me into Afghanistan and into the lives of Mariam and Laila.

As soon as I became engrossed in Mariam’s story, which got me hooked on page one; I was transferred to Laila’s journey. In Mariam’s part I was spellbound and couldn’t believe all the hardships Mariam faced; how much can one person handle? I was foolish enough to think that Laila would have a happy life with Tariq and was heartbroken when I learned that he was killed while trying to escape from the war. And was shocked when he returned toward the end of the book; at first I thought he might be a phony, but after learning that Rasheed had paid someone to lie about her Love’s death in order to trap her; I was relieved and happy that they would be able to be together after so many years of separation.

After Rasheed’s death I thought it was very honorable that Mariam choose to risk her life, and take the blame for his “murder” in order for Laila, Tariq and her children to have a life together. The ending, with Laila revisiting Mariam’s childhood home and walking through her past was a wonderful closing to A Thousand Splendid Suns, bringing closure to the characters and the reader.