I have wanted to read A Thousand Splendid Suns since I’ve read only good reviews about this book. But I have been hesitant to buy a book at $16.00. So last month, I was checking the bargain shelf at McNally Robinson and lo and behold, the title was on sale at $7.99. They’re only slightly damaged, black markings on the bottom edge of the books. I bought myself a copy.
A Thousand Splendid Suns was written by Khaled Hosseini, the same author who gave us The Kite Runner. I’ve seen the movie The Kite Runner before I read the book. I loved the movie. I loved the book even more. A Thousand Splendid Suns, I loved it much more!
I’ve never had any idea of the plot of A Thousand Splendid Suns before I read it. All I knew was that it was about Afghanistan. And I just loved the experience I had in reading this book. The story unfolding before me as I read it. Without the expectations of, “oh maybe this is the part where this thing will happen.” I usually give out spoilers when I write movie or book reviews. But you know what, I think I will spare you with any spoilers so you will also have that same experience that I had with this book.
Well, maybe I’ll just give you a little bit of something so you can decide whether you might want to give this book a try. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini tells us about the life of people in Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of two women. He tells us about their joys and sufferings and the ugliness of war and poverty. It’s heartbreaking. But what touched me the most is how these two women, so different from each other, bonded and banded together against the person that hurt them the most.
It’s always interesting to learn about the way of life and culture of other people. But as I have discovered over and over again, we may all be different, but we are all the same when it comes to our joys and pains. We all have that same exhilarating feeling when we experience our first love and when we learn that we are carrying a baby inside our body. We all have that same crushing feeling when someone we love hurts us or when we lose a loved one.
And what I like about stories like this is that it reminds us that no matter how you think your life sucks right now, is that there is always hope. Things will look better tomorrow…
“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”
I like Hosseini’s style of writing. It’s very simple and easy to read, yet it’s so beautiful.
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May 24, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Daphne
Oh I loved “A Thousand Splendid Suns” too. A mixture of emotions tend to overwhelm you when you read the poignant story of these two very strong willed women. I wonder if they will adapt it into a movie.
May 31, 2009 at 1:04 am
bing
i think i have to have a copy of the kite runner. my son was told it is a good book! but there are still a lot waiting to be read.. tsk tsk
June 7, 2009 at 4:51 pm
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[...] the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. I don’t know how these authors do it. Just like Khaled Hosseini and Patrick Lane, she wrote about a very sad story and made her prose read like [...]
August 8, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Wil
I’ll have to read this next. I read other authors after I finished The Kite Runner and now I think I’m ready to read A Thousand Splendid Suns.
October 10, 2009 at 11:40 pm
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[...] like to continue on reading the Shopaholic series and so I read different book. I really liked A Thousand Splendid Suns, but it has such a serious and heavy theme and I thought that I needed something easy and light to [...]