A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

Author : Khaled Hosseini

Best sellers: The Kite Runner

Synopsis : 

Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry the troubled and bitter Rasheed, who is thirty years her senior. 

Nearly two decades later, in a climate of growing unrest, tragedy strikes fifteen year old Laila, who must leave her home and join Mariam's unhappy household.


 Laila and Mariam are to find consolation in each other, their friendship to grow as deep as the bond between sisters, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter.

With the passing time comes  Taliban rule over Afghanistan and the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life is a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women's endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. 


Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, leads them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction.

Excerpts: 

Laila watches Mariam glue strands of yarn into her doll's head.
In a few years, this little girl will be a woman who will make small demands on life, who will never burden others, who will never let on that she too has had sorrows, disappointments, dreams that have been ridiculed.


 A woman will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but shaped by a turbulence that washes over her.


 Already Laila sees something behind the young girl's eyes, something deep in her core, that neither Rasheed not Taliban will be able to break. Something as hard and unyielding as a block of limestone. Something that, in the end, will be her undoing and Laila's salvation.

Maithili Speak: 

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,

Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls..

An ugly reality woven into fabrics of fiction. A heart wrenching tale of two women put together by a cruel twist of fate, struggling for a gulp of air of freedom under the troubled times in Afghanistan and their common husband. 


Take up this book if you are in for a dose of reality and want to look at the world of the women in Afghanistan.


 It will make you agitated, frustrated, even weep within your heart for the sad plight of these women and children. 


As the book progressed I couldn't help but applaud the courage and strength of these women. It will make  you count your blessing of living in a war free region with no restrictions on personal movements. No matter how bad the condition, home is always home and this is precisely the point of the verse.. No matter how destructed the place is, the people have fond memories and they will work to bring back Afghanistan from the rubbles of corpse. 


It is a story of hope, of courage, of love, of friendship and a bond that is deeper than all...a bond of suffering.. 

I would rate this book as 4 on 5.. 

P.S This is my first book review and I started with a serious topic. I hope I created a good impression. :P :P .. Thank you FL for inviting me to write here.. :) 

P.P.S Since FL here is already doing reviews on latest books , I will write about books which are not that latest yet should make it into your reading list :) Also I read from library so except for a few books which I own, I won't be able to quote their price :)