A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

★★★★★

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.