A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Review
This beautiful, tender, tragic story has exposed several paradoxes. There are both gentle, godly Muslims and there are cruel, ungodly Muslims. Within one heart there are levels of suffering and despair beyond imagination and there is hope that can see a thousand splendid suns in the midst of a nightmarish persecution beyond belief.
I loved this book; this is the Afghan woman’s equivalent to “The Kite Runner” that broke our hearts as well. Khaled Hosseini has drawn with his straightforward prose a plot that is all too believable for those of us who remember the Soviet pounding of Afghanistan followed by Jihad followed by the ruthless Taliban, each situation a worse hell than the former.
What I loved most was the gentle hints of the evolving grace and maturity of these two amazing women, Mariam and Laila, as their hapless situations bring them into a sisterhood that is closer than blood relationship.
While Laila has that survivor instinct that we admire and applaud, Mariam becomes the true heroine. I loved how her generous spirit and sacrificial act gives Laila and the children and Tariq a chance, finally, for a peaceful life.
One has to ponder as both the brutal Rasheed and the gentle Mariam face their mortality, how eternity might judge them.
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