A Thousand Splendid Suns

Title: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Pages: 11 discs

Genre: Fiction

Grade: B+

Synopsis: The book begins with the story of Mariam, who is an illegitimate child of a local businessman. After her mother commits suicide, she is married off to a 40-year-old man who continually abuses her, especially after she has a few miscarriages and fails to deliver the son that Rasheed so desperately wants. The story then shifts to 14-year-old Laila whose parents are killed by stray bombs. Rasheed ends up taking her in as a second wife. The complete story takes place over a 30-year timespan in Afghanistan, when the country was gripped by anti-Soviet jihad, civil war, Taliban cruelty and finally uncertainty after the US invasion in 2001.

My Review: The book is very depressing and violent as it seems that the main characters can never get a break. I love reading about places and countries that I know so little about (Afghanistan), and from what I've gathered, this book is generally true to history. My biggest complaint is that the first half of the book felt very disjointed with the story focusing on Mariam before switching to Laila with no apparent connection between them.

Disclaimer: There is some language, but quite a bit of violence and death that may be disturbing.

The Kite Runner

Title: The Kite Runner

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Pages: 372

Genre: Fiction

Grade: A-

Synopsis: Amir and his wealthy father, Baba, live in a beautiful house in Kabul, Afghanistan.  Their servants and lifelong friends Hassan and Ali live in a small house on the same property.  Amir and Hassan do everything together with Amir always trying to gain his father's love and adoration.  Hassan, being Amir's servant, is one of the most loyal and likeable character in all literature,  One of the boys' favorite things to do is to fly kites in the winter.  After one of the city's big kite running competitions, an unspeakable event comes between Amir and Hassan.  An event that would haunt Amir for the rest of his life.

My Review: There are very few books that you just love and hate.  The loyalty and unwavering love of Hassan and his father are inspiring and the friendship between the two boys (Amir and Hassan) is incredible.  The terrors that haunt Amir as he and his father flee the Russian occupation of Afghanistan are heartbreaking.  Amir is very likeable but some of the things he does and the decisions he makes tear you apart.  This is a powerful book about growing up in Afghanistan before all of the wars and occupations.

Disclaimer: The book has some violence and a bit of foul language and sex.  Not recommended for children.

From the Book: "(p. 52) Except that wasn't all. The real fun began when a kite was cut. That was where the kite runners came in, those kids who chased the windblown kite drifting through the neighborhoods until it came spiraling down in a field, dropping in someone's yard, on a tree or a rooftop. The chase got pretty fierce; hordes of kite runners swarmed the streets, shoved past each other like those people from Spain I'd read about once, the ones who ran from the bulls. One year a neighborhood kid climbed a pine tree for a kite. A branch snapped under his weight and he fell thirty feet. Broke his back and never walked again. But he fell with the kite still in his hands. And when a kite runner has his hands on a kite, no one could take it from him. That wasn't a rule. That was a custom."

"(p. 128) I wanted to tell them that, in Kabul, we snapped a tree branch and used it as a credit card. Hassan and I would take the wooden stick to the bread maker. He'd carve notches on our stick with his knife, one notch for each loaf of naan he'd pull for us from the tandoor's roaring flames. At the end of the month, my father paid him for the number of notches on the stick. That was it. No questions. No ID."