A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

      "Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them - in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul - they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival."







         Khaled Hosseini brings a new understanding of the people in Afghanistan during the troubling times of the last century. There are definitely adult themes of marital relations, abuse, relations outside of marriage, and parental sacrifice, as well as violence of the time, including talk of beatings, killings, torture, rape, and death. Hosseini keeps the descriptions as clean as possible, while still describing the horrors of the time. This made for a very good read, not shying away from difficult topics and the realities of life for these people. I would suggest this book to all to help further understand people of this culture and background, yet I would not suggest it to those wanting a light-hearted, comical novel.

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