A thousand splendid suns

I've never made a book review before this, but it's a book so deeply enthralling that I just have to express it out here, to let you readers (if there is any) know how amazing it is. It's a second novel I read written by Khaled Hosseini; the first one being The Kite Runner borrowed from a friend. I should have written a review on that one as well, because it was also a novel worth the reading.

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A thousand splendid suns is a story about two women - Mariam and Laila in the Afghan surroundings back during when the Soviets ruled until Mujahideen, and then the Taliban take over the country. What I like about it is how the novel is divided into four parts. The first part focuses exclusively on Mariam, the second and fourth parts focus on Laila, and the third part switches focus between Mariam and Laila with each chapter.

Mariam is an illegitimate daughter who lives with her mother. Her dad Jalil is a wealthy man who lives somewhere else in town with his three wives and nine children. Because Mariam is his illegitimate daughter, she cant live with them but even so, Jalil still visit her every week. On her 15th birthday, Mariam wants her dad to take her to the movies but he didnt show up so she decided to go to the town on her own and meet him. But then he refuses to see her and she ends up sleeping on the porch all night long. Mariam returns home in the morning to find that her mother has killed herself. Jalil then arranges for her to be married to Rasheed a 30 year old shoemaker from Kabul. Mariam becomes pregnant seven successive times, but is never able to carry a child to term, and Rasheed gradually becomes more abusive.

The story continues when Rasheed marries Laila which crosses the path of these two women....and how they learn to live together in one roof, secrets being told, apostate to the act of violence, sharing of love and patience. And how they end up in the end is for me to know and for you to find out. HEHE.

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Some quotes I like:

"A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated..."

"Behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason."

"Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly."

"She is the noor of my eyes and the sultan of my heart."

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Grab a copy. Go on, you know you want to ;)