A Thousand Splendid Suns By: Khaled Hosseini

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• Title: A Thousand Splendid Suns
• Author: Khaled Hosseini
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication Date: November 25, 2008 (2006) 
• Pages: 415
• Genre: Fiction
• Recommended Age: 15+
• First Read: 2013
• Source: Purchase 
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0 stars

After I read The Kite Runner,  I went around trying to get my hands on all of Khaled Hosseini's books because I had fallen in love with his writing style. And when I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, I realized that it had become my favorite stand alone book. I have read this book more times than I can possibly count and have wept every single time I have read it, which I am not ashamed to say in the least.

“You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.”

It often seems that this book and The Kite Runner are endlessly compared, but it is important to regard this novel as its own separate entity with its own story to tell, and boy, what a story, or rather, stories they are.

The novel intertwines the fates of two Afghan women, Mariam and Laila, who grow up very differently, yet come together to battle adversity and find joy in a country frought with turmoil. Everything is richly described and Hosseini is able to use simple language to convey powerful emotion, which was  the defining aspect of this book. There was not a single moment where I felt the plot line was at all slow because every word is chosen with the utmost care and contributed to the beauty of the work.

"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls."

My favorite aspect of this novel is the world Hosseini created for me-for everyone-as I got to know Mariam, whom I felt an intense emotional connection with, and Laila, whom I loved greatly as well. I had no trouble at all delving into a world that I knew very little about because I was utterly entranced by the evocative language used. There is nothing better than to be transported to another world from the first word of a novel and this is exactly what happened as I read this book. I also relished the fact that these women portray the stark reality of Afghanistan and give a powerful insight to the lives of people in a land that we are sadly misinformed about. The greatest message this novel gave to was not only the strong resiliency in the women of Afghanistan, but its entire people's spirit as well because  we seem to forget to give faces to the tragic stories we hear abroad and this novel does just that.

There was nothing in this novel I disliked outright, but I felt that the main protagonists in the story could be clarified a little better. Throughout the first half of the book, Mariam is the central focus, but later, the focus shifts more towards Laila, with Mariam still playing an integral part of Laila's narrative. With the loosest definition I say that there are two main protagonists, but I choose to believe that the novel is most strongly conceived around Mariam, with Laila acting as a very strong supporting role. This is of  course, how I choose to view the novel, and I know a great number of others who argue that Laila and Mariam are equally represented in the story. I do not argue with that fact; to me however, Mariam's spirit and presence within the book is more ingrained in the story than Laila's because Mariam truly endured more hardship than her younger counterpart. The novel also begins and ends with Mariam, so I feel that Mariam's story was more prevalent.

“And that, ...is the story of our country, one invasion after another...Macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.”

Regardless, both women demonstrate an incredible capacity to endure and to thrive in an environment that was more unforgiving than a desert to a delicate rose. I admire their strength in the face of such adversity and hope that I can have even a fraction of the resiliency they posses.