A Thousand Splendid Suns

Title:  A Thousand Splendid Suns Author:  Khaleo Hosseini Genre:  Fiction, Family Life, War Length: 420 pages (paperback) Sensitive Content:  Sexual, Abuse, Killing  Rating:  3 out of 5

A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan and tells the story of Mariam over the course of 30 years.  The viewpoint throughout the book is mostly Mariam's, but other characters are heard as well, specifically Laila.

Mariam is a harami, born out of wedlock, and lives with her mother in a remote house, really a hut.  Her father Jalil visits her once a week.  Mariam's mother has lived a hard live and wants to protect her daughter, but Mariam views it as her mother keeping her from her father.  When Mariam runs off to find her father's house, she ultimately returns to her mother having committed suicide.

Jalil's wives do not want Mariam in the house.  She is quickly wed to Rasheed and moved to Kabul.  Rasheed is much older than Mariam and has traditional expectations of what a wife should be...not seen or heard.  When Mariam is unable to carry a baby to term, Rasheed is frustrated.

Laila is much younger than Mariam, young enough to be her daughter.  We are introduced to her as a child.  When a bomb goes off in the neighborhood, Rasheed finds Laila barely alive.  They nurse her back to health.  Rasheed sees this as his opportunity to have a young wife and children, Laila sees this as an opportunity for a husband as she has found that she's pregnant, Mariam sees this as someone taking over her life.

Life in the house is difficult for the women until one night.  The baby girl reaches out to Mariam, the women begin to bond and truly become family.  Laila shares with Mariam that Aziza is a harami as well and that she's been stealing money from Rasheed so that they can leave.  When the women try, they are turned over to local authorities.  Ultimately they resign to their lives, always hoping for a better future.

I enjoyed how the book was broken into parts so it was easier for me to read a section and then set it down as I needed.  The story is told with great detail and truly brings you into the world of Mariam and Laila.  While portions of the ending saddened me, I felt that it was accurate to the situation at the time.  Overall an enjoyable book, but not for the light reader.