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Jan 27, 2008

Lucy rated it:

For the last two months I have been putting off reading this book. For starters, I bought the book at an airport in Taiwan, which meant it didn't have a due date which meant it took a backseat to many books that I didn't have the luxury of reading whenever.

Additionally, because I've heard so much about this book already, I almost didn't want to read it at all. I've heard that it's depressing, that it's not as good as The Kite Runner, and that it's basically a novel about the brutal t More...

17 comments like (268 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Anu rated it:

August 2007

I was riding in a cab in Bombay recently, and a bookseller on foot approached me at a traffic light with a stack of books. I did my best not to look at the boy, but I couldn't help it. He was waving several books in my face and something caught my eye. I thought my glance was discreet, but he saw me look.. and it was game over. The light turned green right then and the boy starts running with the cab yelling 'Memsahib! Memsahib!'. We're picking up speed.. I'm so scared he' More...

14 comments like (116 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Don rated it:

Suns is part historical fiction, part social commentary and part kick-in-the-throat storytelling. A friend of mine said that Suns is a metaphor for Afghanistan but I found it illustrative of Afghanistan's weary and violent history; I found it brutally educational. When I had studied in Germany in 1987, I lived in an international dormitory. I asked my neighbor, Hyder, where he was from, he leaned in to me with a devilish grin and hissed “Afghanistan!” While others found this amusing, the eff More...

1 comment like (55 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2011

Stephen rated it:

Like diamonds and roses hidden under bomb rubble, this is a story of intense beauty and strength buried under the surface of the cruel and capricious life imposed upon two Afghani women.

She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how people like us suffer, she'd said. How q

More...

24 comments like (63 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2011

Tom rated it:

Book Review

A Thousand Splendid Suns
By Khaled Hosseini

Reviewed by Tom Carrico

It’s amazing that this author has the #1 fiction paperback (The Kite Runner) and the #1 fiction hardback (A Thousand Splendid Suns) on “The New York Times” bestseller list. The Kite Runner has sold over four millions copies since its release in 2003. It is a hauntingly written novel set in war-torn Afghanistan. It is exceptionally well plotted and opens the window on a part of More...

2 comments like (32 people liked it)

May 30, 2008

Rachel rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

18 comments like (41 people liked it)

Sep 14, 2008

Khaya rated it:

To my editor:

Khaled here. As I was reviewing my final draft of “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” some questions occurred to me.

1. Could I make the characters any less complex? Despite my efforts, I feel I haven’t fully achieved the one-dimensionality my readers seemed to love in “The Kite Runner.” Specifically, I’m afraid I may have given Rassan one or two potentially sympathetic moments early on despite his overall abusive personality (although I more than make up for it). More...

43 comments like (66 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2007

Janeciab rated it:

My review from the Los Angeles Times Book Review:

Afghani-born novelist Khaled Hosseini enthralled readers with “The Kite Flyer,” his first novel, which was constructed around the friendship between Amir, a privileged Pashtun Sunni born in Kabul, and his boyhood friend and servant Hassan, a Shi’a, ethnic Hazara and master kite runner who, in the course of running to ground the coveted last fallen kite of the winter tournament in 1975, has a violent encounter that changes both boys’ l More...

4 comments like (22 people liked it)

Jun 11, 2008

HappyHippo rated it:

The story sets in a "war zone" Afghanistan which is Hosseini does his good job provides me with a glimpse of the history of Afghanistan. Although I feel the story moves slowly in the 1st and 2nd part of the book. The story is really flowing for me when Mariam and Laila lives become intertwined. From this point this book simply unputdownable. Mariam and Laila forged an alliance and harboring resentment against a violent and brutal Rasheed whose happen to be their husband (I really want More...

48 comments like (18 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2008

Ruth rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

5 comments like (24 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Leila rated it:

It took me about 4 chapters to get into this book but it was well worth it. The story seems a little slow at first but it's meant to.

There were two things I found remarkable about this book. The first is that the story is told so simply. There is little emphasis placed on the inconceivable atrocities the characters in the book endure. Instead, the emphasis is placed on the characters and their lives. There are times that the readers find themselves enjoying moments with the women in More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2009

Beth added it

Seems that this book and its predecessor, The Kite Runner, has been getting a lot of buzz on the Internet lately — but based on the reviews, I’d shied away from reading either. Most people seemed to agree that these stories of Afghan civil war were “hard” to read — not because of lengthy, erudite descriptions (quite to the contrary, actually; Splendid Suns, at least, was basically well-written with plenty of dialogue to drive the reader through the storyline) but because of the topic. I suspect More...

7 comments like (12 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jennifer Joelle rated it:

I must admit that I had some trepidation in starting this novel, along with hope and excitement.

Hosseini's first book, "The Kite Runner" is quite truthfully, one of the best novels I have ever had the pleasure of reading and I can state most elatedly that "A Thousand Splendid Suns" will take it's place amongst those stories that I cherish. I was apprehensive in starting this book simply because I was worried that I would be disappointed; that it would not be cl More...

1 comment like (12 people liked it)

Mar 04, 2009

Daniel rated it:

It's apparently becoming something of a tradition for me to trash books that are not only widely loved and praised, but were specifically recommended to me by friends. Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splended Suns," I'm sorry to say, is going to get the same treatment. (Forgive me, Rose.) "Splendid Suns" has been so widely read by this point, I won't bother recounting the story, and instead simply list my objections:

- Hosseini seems incapable of creating characters More...

13 comments like (35 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2008

Eastofoz rated it:

Another exceptional book by Hosseini. It’ll rip out your heart, have you crying buckets and buckets of tears while marveling at the triumph of the human spirit through severe and virtually unimaginable adversity as well as pure hell.

The writing is absolutely beautiful. The pictures he paints with his words are so vivid that everything from the fun everyday life to the squalor that war brings to the ordinary person just flashes before your eyes like a movie. There are some parts t More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2007

Gana rated it:

I was disappointed with the quality of this novel after reading his first brilliant novel "Kite Runner". For sure, the story is tragic, painful and unusual for many people, but I don't see the beauty of a novel here; Khaled Hosseini does not sufficiently open internal worlds of his characters; there are not enough descriptions of senses, feelings, thoughts, perceptions and judgments of characters. Events move forcefully and fast: Mariam marries to older man ...she was scared and shudde More...

8 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 06, 2007

Abby rated it:

A Thousand Splendid Suns is not a happy book. The lives of the two main characters mirror, internalize and reflect back a metaphor for Afghanistan's brutal, weary, bruised history. Whereas I read The Kite Runner as a retelling of Les Miserables, A Thousand Splendid Suns stands in its own, telling the story of Miriam and Laila, wives of abusive and manipulative Rasheed.

I have a hard time comparing this novel to The Kite Runner and feel that the comparison does a disservice to both More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 31, 2007

Melissa rated it:

I tore through this book. Literally read it in about eight hours (my day off). It was an entertaining read, and sad, but I wasn't uplifted by it; it lacked profundity. It's not one of the books that I would read again and again. But maybe that's got to do with the fact that I prefer happier stories.

No one will deny that women have always, and continue to, have it hard. Life sucks for women, and it sucks harder if you live in a war-torn, third world country. Mariam is the bastard chi More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 20, 2008

Philip rated it:

I read A Thousand Splendid Suns having just finished Kite Runner. I would like the opportunity to live life again (who wouldn’t?), if only to have a chance of reversing the order of this experience. I suspect that had I read A Thousand Splendid Suns first then none of the criticisms I raise about the book would even have been imagined, let alone expressed. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a wonderful book, a compelling and gut-wrenching story of two women, Mariam and Laila, who share a husband throug More...

5 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 14, 2008

Corbin rated it:

Afghanistan: this crossroads between the East & the West has been crippled by a continuous civil war beginning in the late 1970's. Since then, the ongoing war has caused considerable changes and for all the residents--especially the women in the capital Kabul where much of the violence has taken place.

I looked forward to seeing the changes the female characters were forced into when the Taliban became a stronger politico-religious force in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, where More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2007

Michael added it

This book would bore a stone to tears. I mean, it is really, terribly boring. Toward the end it felt like I was going to go crazy if it wasn't over soon. Like when I tried to read that doorstop "War and Peace", or "Ethan Frome" from high school, or "The Scarlet Letter". Arrrgggghh!

That said, I think this is a good writer, maybe a great writer, and that is why I did finish it. I liked Kite Runner so much. And this one made many of the same points in a slo More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 06, 2007

LeAnn rated it:

I requested A Thousand Splendid Suns from my local library, and after waiting four months, I decided to request The Kite Runner since it was Hosseini's first book. I ended up getting both at the same time, but I listen to TKR in the car while commuting to my daughter's school,so I finished ATSS first. Perhaps that's the right order because several readers on GoodReads have worried that the second novel couldn't compare favorably to the first.

I liked Laila and Maryam's story a lot and More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2007

Phoebe rated it:

After reading both of Khaled Hosseini's books, I have rediscovered a love for reading, that I thought was long lost. Reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" I was immersed in a world completely different then my own. I loved it, I loved feeling like I was right there beside Miriam and Laila through all of their pain, suffering and joy. This book was initially broken up into two different stories. The story of Miriam who was a "bastard" child, and the story of Laila absorbed More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Otis rated it:

I'm not sure if I love Khaled's characters (see my review of The Kite Runner), but the man can tell a story. I think all Americans need to read this book, as it helps to understand and sympathize with what the people in Afghanistan have gone through. Particularly interesting as the book spans 30+ years and paints a very graphic picture of how Afghanistan changed in that time. From Russian communists to warlords to the Taliban to US Army, there have been no shortage of invaders and wars, and vict More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Kandice rated it:

This book put me through the emotional wringer! I mean that in the best sense, but I can't even call it an emotional roller coaster, because, other than the end, there were no highs.

First off, I can not express how impressed I am with Hosseini's ability to write from a woman's perspective. The book tells the story of two women, beginning with their childhoods, and how their stories intertwine and weave a beautiful tapestry of hope in a land that does nothing to foster that hope. Hos More...

11 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 28, 2011

Louize rated it:

"But I love her, for knowing and loving are born of this same dust..."

Reading Kabul by Saib-e-Tabrizi reminded me of our own flag – its sun and stars; our own celebrated democracy; and the women of our past who were instruments into bringing peace about in this country. Yes, WOMEN – mothers, wives, sisters – all heroes of the new century.

It is different in Afghanistan, though. Women there are but possessions in their culture. A rebel being like me will not su More...

11 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2011

Nicola rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 12, 2010

Allison (The Allure of Books) rated it:

This story is truly heartbreaking...the way women are treated is disgusting...if things like that happened here in America we'd all be sharpening our shovels. It is really eye-opening to read this and see and understand how lucky we are to live in such a forward-thinking society.

The way Hosseini writes is magnificent, he captures the thoughts and feelings of women so accurately. I couldn't be more impressed, its like he really was a woman living in Afghanistan. Some of the things he More...

19 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2011

Becky rated it:

I loved The Kite Runner, but A Thousand Splendid Suns is even better. This book is described as breathtaking, and I have to say that is a teensy bit of an understatement.

There were times, reading this, when I literally couldn't breathe, and felt like the bottom had dropped out of my stomach. But this story is beautiful, and enlightening and hopeful even through all the gritty, heart-wrenching, almost physically painful emotional rawness of it.

I am surprised at how well More...

6 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2009

Milan/zzz rated it:

In his bestselling debut The Kite Runner the accent is on the relationship between father and son and friendships between men, in this novel relationship between women is in the focus. Moreover Mr. Hosseini is precisely dedicated this novel “to the women of Afghanistan”.

This is a story of two women against the background of the last forty years in Afghanistan. Two women from completely different milieus but almost equally tragic destiny. Of course this can’t be different considering More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)