As a child I fought for my own identity with everything within me because of two older brothers whom I perceived as being more valued than I was. I have often wondered how I could live under such circumstances because I have a rather spunky attitude. This book lets us have a glimpse into what it must be like for women over there, and it is not a pretty picture.

The situation in Afghanistan for women is abysmal, to put it nicely.

It does offer much to think and talk about, and reminds me that I have so much to be grateful for. This is not a happy book, although the ending is much happier than the beginning. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.Ī stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love. As they endure the ever-escalating dangers around them, in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul, they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation.

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of 30 years of Afghanistan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.īorn a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss, and by fate.

A thousand splendid suns author