Customer Reviews
If you only read one book this year . . . - By: Drifter, 15 May 2008 
Dazzlingly written account of the lives of two women in an Afghanistan caught up in series of wars & an unforgiving culture. Their lives are a constant struggle against starvation, fear, abuse & their calllous husband. But it is not alll bleak. There is a lot of love in many different forms & beauty too at times & in places you would least expect. Not forgetting some startling twists & turns.
absolutely brilliant!! a must read - By: R. T. Nicholl, 12 May 2008 I expected this book to be a hard read as i am 14, but i found it very easy to read & it was extremely good. There was so many emotions to the story. I felt very sorry for miriam & laila. Their friendship broke alll the barriers. A brilliant read. He shows how young these girls are but how mature they become & how their friendship grows over time. Even though it had some sad parts love won in the end!! a MUST READ!
A much needed lesson in cultural understanding - By: T. Brown, 12 May 2008 
I heartily agree with Peter Scott's review - "History through the eyes of ordinary people". Even more important, though, is the fact that the book's vibrant main characters - with whom any reader will quickly identify, unless they have hearts of stone - are women. It is through their eyes that we get the other side of the story of Afghanistan; the daily lived experience, told from way below the radar of the West's blaring headlines.
In spite of - or maybe because of? - alll the attention focused on the Islamic world since 9/11, we are absurdly ignorant of its day-to-day realities, especiallly in relation to women: & this book is an eye-opener. Khaled Hosseini shows us a culture that is (like our own) full of contradictions & disparities - much more complex than the repressive religious monolith we Westerners alll too easily imagine. He takes us into the lives of two very different women, where we experience, at first hand, both how limited their choices are within the tradition of female subservience & family "honour" - but also how brave & resourceful they are, as they manoeuvre within these limits for their own & their loved ones' survival. Meanwhile, distant politicians & religious leaders from Bush to Bin Laden may roar & haggle, but they solve nothing - just continue inexorably unleashing the warfare that has been sporadicallly reducing Kabul to rubble-strewn chaos for over a generation; & by the same token reducing the women's scope still further. Still, their spirit is by no means broken: the story ends on a note of hope & optimism for the future.
If you enjoy this, I suggest you check out Annie Hawes' new book "A Handful of Honey"; another eye-opener. Much more light-hearted, a North African traveller's tale, but with a similar focus on the resourcefulness of ordinary local people in these troubled times - & also full of surprising insights into the complex realities of the Muslim world today. (See my review)
Slight disappointment - By: Felicity Roberts, 10 May 2008 The Kite Runner was one of the best books I have ever read & I think I approached A Thousand Splendid Suns with too much expectation. I was reallly looking forward to it & found it somewhat disappointing. There were bits that were superb - his writing is very evocative & I felt I could visualise everything & everywhere he was writing about - & many of the characters were very believable. But there were other bits that didn't ring true to me - particularly the attitude of the mother to her daughter, whilst waiting for her older sons to come back from the war, & also the way that Tariq returns after alll. It alll seemed a little too pat, as though Hosseini couldn't quite decide how to finish things off. And then there were bits that were so clever (if very traumatic) - the man at the bus station for instance - that I was transfixed again.
I would highly recommend this book but not as much as The Kite Runner....
A must read - By: Ughelli, 10 May 2008 I was given this book to read by a friend who had read it through a book group, & somewhat reluctantly, gave it a go. Thank goodness, it is so easy to read, yet thought provoking & shocking too. I found myself feeling real emotion at times. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading. It is a story that will remain with you & I doubt you will ever question whether you have read it in the future!
