A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

from goodreads

3 stars

Today was supposed to be an awesome day. The kids were to have pyjama day and pizza day at school today. That meant I wouldn't have had to force them to get dressed in the morning and I wouldn't have had to worry about lunch, just snacks. But, Mother Nature had a different plan in mind. Over night there was freezing rain which coated trees, roads and everything in a nice layer of ice. This meant that schools were closed and the dreams I had of a nice easy morning were dashed. The morning was still nice and easy, we all lazed in bed a bit longer than normal, but I just couldn't appreciate it as I should have. I kept thinking of what could have been.

Oh well, at least now we have a super duper long weekend!

Synopsis

This book takes place in Afghanistan. It follows two women and their lives as sister wives to a rather conservative man. It looks at the lives of women in Afghanistan and how they have changed throughout the 20th century. It is heartwarming and heartbreaking.

My Thoughts

While this book dealt with important issues and brought them out in a compelling narrative, I didn't really enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. I think it was because of the unending sadness of what was going on with the characters. These women never seemed to be able to catch a break. If anything bad or horrid could happen to them it did. A little reprieve no matter how short would have been nice. I guess Hosseini was showing us the reality of what women go through under repressive regimes and men. That reality does need to be acknowledged. I guess maybe I needed a lighter more hopeful book at this time instead of one that showed the drudgery and injustices women face.

It was interesting to see how differently women were treated under the different regimes. And how drastically the changes were from one to the next. Under the communists women were given a lot of freedoms and were treated the same as men. Then the communists were gone, the Taliban came in shortly after and they were treated as subhuman. The hospital scene in the book still haunts me. Things like that should never be allowed.

It is kind of interesting how the more conservative in views the regime or husbands were the more their views didn't make sense. They wanted sons to be born, yet they gave the women appalling conditions to give birth in, which would lead to infant mortality rates. And those rates are not sex biased. Also, these people wanted to lead and reign over people. Well if population growth doesn't happen, there will be no one left to reign over.

This book was great at showing the history of Kabul and Afghanistan. It showed the great history of the land, and the sadness when it was destroyed. It showed a people determined to survive even if they might not be thriving and the hope for better times to come. It was a bittersweet story, one I might have enjoyed better if I was in a different frame of mind.