Sunday Book Review : A Thousand Splendid Suns

Rated 4.3/5 from Goodreads, A Thousand Splendid Suns is the second novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, following the best-seller 2003 debut The Kite Runner. If you've already read The Kite Runner, this book will definitely rip your heart into pieces if not already. 

Set in Afghanistan between 1960's to early 2000, it tells the story of Mariam, a young girl born out of wedlock to a rich businessman father, Jalil, and lives with her mother Nana. As far as cliche goes, the story is well fat with it - the suffering of a fatherless child, the mother finally having had enough and took her own life, an unfortunate marriage to an abusive husband, miscarriages and so many unfortunate events in the life of the little girl from her childhood to her death. 

But, in contrast, while The Kite Runner tells the story of friendship and bond between men, A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story of a bond between mother and daughter, and of friendship between women. The storyline is also something contrasting to The Kite Runner, where the story is rather linear and gains momentum as events after event unfurls. 

One notable theme of the novel is addressing women oppression in traditional Afghanistan - depicted clearly after Mariam, in her early teens, was married to Rasheed, an old shoemaker, against her will. Rasheed forces Mariam to wear a burqa, to not speak to any men and were to stay in her room when there are male visitors in the house. After she failed to give birth to a son, instead bearing a daughter after a few miscarriages, Mariam was treated even worse, subjected to mean scorn, ridicule and insults especially to her cooking by Rasheed. 

Reading the book, to me, felt like taking a glimpse of what life in Afghanistan must be like back then, between the time of peace and the rise of Talibans, where the social status of women were deemed of very little importance compared to men - denying the right for women to pursue education or work, even hospitals turning down female patients in labor because men and women are supposed to be seen at different hospitals, as well as the Titanic fever following the movie that was played in cinemas and in videotapes back then. It is in the perspective of Mariam that these stories were told, and what made this novel a stirring read, almost impossible to resist (Entertainment Weekly).