Read in July – August 2007
A sweet story by Hosseini about two female characters and their lives/hardships through war-torn Afghanistan. I found his character development and story development to be less cheesy than "The Kite Runner" and quite enjoyable. This story does not pull at the emotional heartstrings like his first novel. This could be due to his style of description subduing the reader so when bad news needs to be told the reader is not shocked by it.
The story has many sad points, but the inner strength and resilience of the two women stuck in a terrible marriage is admirable. Though this story has a slightly happier ending, it still has the character I was most attached to abandoning the reader – which I think is part of Hoesseini’s point – that in all the violence and turmoil of Afghanistan at the time of the story it is impossible to think any story can fully escape the surroundings and remain authentic.
Read more about it and purchase it here.
