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A Thousand Splendid Suns by: Khaled Hosseini

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Rating: - Poignant, truthful & inspiring

Have just finished reading this BEAUTIFUL book in one sitting, could not put it down!

The author has a wonderful way with words and drew a very believable picture of Afghanistan from 1960s - 2000s, the war, social issues, repression. In a sense, this book was more than a story of friendship, but also a story of a wounded country.

I felt very attached to the characters of Laila and Mariam and felt every happiness, heartbreak and pain they went through. Great talent for a male writer to depict the hearts and souls of two women so movingly.

Very unforgettable, and will be recommending this to all my friends!

Rating: - Spontaneous outpourings of an Afghan heart

Splendid Indeed! I would like to use all those hackneyed expressions about Hosseini which usually appear on the cover page of a bookseller. Excellent! Suspenseful! Unforgettable! Gripping! Heartbreaking! I would be honest in using all of them and still it wouldn't be enough! Yes! Hosseini is that good!

Since, The Da Vinci Code and the Harry Potter series I haven't read a more gripping book. A Thousand Splendid Suns has everything you may want in a book. I won't go into the details of the story. It tells stories of two Afghan women and the traumas they have to bear under the Islamic regime of the Taliban.

Hosseini is indeed a master storyteller and you get hooked to it. He is so intensely graphic that you see every little movement described in the book, and listen to every wind rustling; every sigh falling.

He moves our deepest emotions and we get carried. We laugh with the characters; we feel their pain; we look at Afghanistan the way Afghans do.

The narrative is very authentic. Hosseini knows about the place he is talking about. He knows his Afghanistan, very unlike the Booker winner Adiga, who knows next to nothing about India. He is also clear about his content and has no tolerance for Islamic fundamentalism. A Thousand Splendid Suns is also not politically motivated like, A Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.

The havoc Taliban brought upon Afghanistan is vividly portrayed. He does not ignore its tragedy for the sake of being politically correct. The inhumanity of Taliban and all its supporters, the barbarity of Islamic fundamentalism and the brunt women have to bear under Islam is truthfully portrayed.

He does not forget to pay a tribute to the destroyed statues of Bamiyan. He does not express joy over 9/11, like Hamid does in A Reluctant Fundamentalist. He does not shun the truth.

His style is pleasantly accessible and familiar. He suffers from no -ism and nothing of post-modern claptrap enters into Hosseini's narrative. If the First World War jilted European psyche, making their poets and writers confused, the Afghanistan War has made Hosseini even more definite in his narrative, clearer in his vision. Some call him, an `old fashioned writer'. I love him for it. He is a little melodramatic and uses some standard attention engaging techniques of novelists and thriller writers, something which may throw him out of the mainstream of standard literature, but looking at the crap `mainstream' literature is producing these days, it is better not to be included in it.

Not since reading Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie, have I wept over a book. Russia and England were two places which had become alive in my imagination through literature. I now add Afghanistan to that list.

Rating: - best ever read

i loved this book from begining to end, read it on the train from glasgow to london and was sad when i finished it i loved it so much, i loved the strengh in the women and loved how educational it was without realising it. I think people from the west know something goes on in kabul and the taliban it was great getting the inside story and how it affected everyone, can't wait to read more of these books

Rating: - Enjoyable candyfloss

I wanted to like this book. It immersed me in the atmosphere and the life of the characters and gave me the feeling of sorrow and social injustice as I emphasise with the characters.

However, the story is far from believable and left me feeling manipulated. The two main female characters are portrayed well but only and always as victims passively enduring their fate or hoping for salvation from male characters. The climax of the story then seems out of place. Female characters are depicted as too good and too passive and male as decisively powerful, tyrants, and abusers (with the odd glimpse of humanity emerging in a look or a letter). Politics is interwoven in the story mixing a personal melodrama and serious confrontation out of context.

A very disappointing moment is the return of a character from the dead; this left me pained as if I had watched a soap opera.

To sum this: the story is well told and engaging, but far from believable.

Rating: - A-mazinggggggggg!

The highlight of the book for me was the fact that it included two generations(quite old and quite recent/modern) and it absolutely includes everything from death to love to war to action to horror. It really teaches you about the history of Afghanistan without you even realising and really places you into the situation. You find yourself crying with the characters and fighting for your life the next!

For any reader over the age of 15/16 I definitely recommend, as this book really does set a high standard for any other novel that comes after it. I still find it really hard to find a book I truly LOVE because of this spectacular tale.

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