Posted: March 22, 2017, 5:57pm
So, guys, spring break is over 🙁 what did you guys do?
I’m a self-admitted introvert and hence I was curling up and getting my hands on my novels, catching up with friends and of course Netflix and naps!
You know there are these books, which after you read leave such a strong impact on you that you keep pondering about them for days to come after. Well, such a book is Khaled Hosseini’s “A Thousand Splendid Suns”. To say it’s a brilliant read would be an understatement. It left me awestruck and left me thinking for quite some time, it opens up a whole new world to the reader.
Set up in the Afghan region it explores the lives of the women there and you would be shocked to be opened to blunt truths. His earlier novel “The Kite Runner” explored a father-son relationship and this circles around what you would call a mother-daughter relationship. It is mainly about two people Mariam and Laila; starts off with Mariam’s life being part one, Laila part two, the relationship between the two women as part three and Laila’s and Tariq’s life as the last part. It is between how two different individual’s stories get intertwined together. Mariam, an illegitimate child is married off to a man Rashid at a very young age, she is not very attractive but tries to be a good wife, one of the many reasons of her being upset being that she cannot bore a child. Then there’s Laila a beautiful young girl , literally a generation after Mariam, in love with a crippled boy called Tariq since they knew each other. Due to circumstances (war [no more spoilers]) they get separated after the families discover them “together” and she is forced into a marriage with Rashid.
Now being the third part of the story where hardships are woven in and emotions flow, secrets kept and when Laila bears a son and Rashid noticing a disturbing similarity, when Laila is treated above Mariam, Mariam putting up and dealing with stronger, irrational behavior and then finally handling Laila. It is a beautiful story and the reader will start witnessing a bond between two people so filled with emotion like no other. A woman who comes to become a mother without actually giving birth to an offspring. Wow ! Will Laila and Tariq unite? What happens to Laila’s son? How does Mariam deal with all of this? As a woman, it specifically was heart-touching and I felt a pang of pain.
Believe me, it is a read I recommend to everyone and don’t be faint-hearted, be prepared to enter into a whirlpool of family relations and love! You will not be able to put it down once you start!
Published on July 26th, 2017
Last updated on August 10th, 2017