Title : A Thousand Splendid Suns
Author : Khaled Hosseini
Review: 4.5 /5
Brief Summary:
A Thousand Splendid suns is one of the popular fictional books and a New York Times Bestseller written by Khaled Hosseini. It highlights the various difficulties that women have to face in Afghanistan. The most remarkable aspect of this book is that it does not show the difficulties of just one generation, but it shows the evolution and the difference in hardship of women in Afghanistan between the years of 1960 – 2005.
The descriptions of the characters:
Females character:
The author did a very good job of describing the characters in the book. It especially did an incredible job at describing the females in the book. The author described the main character ( Mariam) from the time she was only a kid to her adulthood. This allowed me to relate and understand better the different decisions Mariam decided to take. It especially made me feel more connected to Mariam and it allowed me to put myself in her shoes.
Male character:
The author was also very good at describing the male figures in the book. I love that the author wanted to focus more on the females because his goal was to show the hardship that females had to go through in that country. Even though Hosseini did not describe the male characters in detail, he was able to give me a good idea of what type of characters they were just by how those men treated the females in the book.
Overall:
The way the author described the characters in the book and gives each character a very strong and different personality is something that stands out from other books.
The description of events:
The author did an excellent job of describing the events in the book.
Timeline:
It is very challenging to write books that are intergenerational because it confuses the readers. The timeline of the story becomes very difficult to understand when the story changes from the past to the future many times. However, Hosseini found a way to tell this story in a way that does not confuse the readers. I am not a good reader which is why I often avoid books that change their timeline from the past to the future multiple time, but this book was very organized, and it did not overwhelm me.
Fiction to reality:
A thousand splendid suns is a fictional story but the way the author described different events made the readers feel as if the story is based on a true story. It is very creative of the author to use real historic events of a set of years in Afghanistan. I loved the author’s goals to make this fictional story into feeling as if it is a real story because it makes the readers realize that maybe there is a woman in Afghanistan that is living the same or similar life as the characters in the book.
Recommendations:
I absolutely recommend this book to everyone. Even the ones who do not like reading. I used to not read books but “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is the book that sparked my interest in reading more books. I hope it does the same for you! If you do like this book by Khaled Hosseini I recommend you to read his other books like the kite runners.
CCOM 315 Summer 2021 