Review of "Thousand Splendid Suns"

 “One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls” is the description of Afghanistan in the novel "Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaleid 
Hosseini.

The novel is set in Afghanistan from the 1960s to the 1990s, spanning from 
Soviet occupation to the Taliban control, following the lives of two women 
in their marriages and in their war-torn country. Expecting domestic abuse, 
graphic war descriptions and a main theme of oppression in Afghan women.

The novel is split in a dual narrative, the first being Mariam when she is 
nine, living on the outskirts of Herat with her bitter mother, anxiously in 
wait for the once-a-week visits from her wealthy father. Branded a harami, 
an illegitimate child, Mariam faces many prejudices and blame not only from 
the family of her father, but also from her own mother. Hosseini introduces 
a naïve child whom you immediately pity, and also feel a foreboding clutch 
the pages. Not soon into the story, Mariam discovers the emptiness in her 
father's love and after her mother's suicide, is forced to marry a man more 
than 20 years her senior, her being only 15.
Rasheed is a kind man, albeit rather archaic in his manner and grumpy, but 
all things considered Mariam's life does not seem so terrible anymore. 
Until the miscarriage. And then the continual miscarriages.

However, Hosseini does something new. You pity the husband, for his past is 
one with sorrow much like Mariam's- it does not justify his actions- but 
you feel sympathy for his situation.
Then comes the second narrative- Laila. An innocent young child with a best 
friend who is a boy, a family torn by the war that steals her brothers away 
from her and in turn her mother's affection. Orphaned, torn from her love, 
Laila agrees to marry Rasheed. The stories of these two wives will make you 
gaze in awe at the sheer strength of love in desperate times.

All the way through the novel Hosseini weaves in information about 
Afghanistan's situation nevertheless it is only here that it takes a role 
in the story. Yet he makes sure that it is never a driving force in the 
novel- that is for the voices of these two women. Both trying to make do, 
muddling through life trying to find joy through the gloom, one innocent 
yet hiding a terrible secret and another bitter with age and resenting her 
life. Both still with a glimmer of hope in their eyes as they embark on a 
great journey.

Hosseini's writing is simple, and that is all it needs to be, a welcoming 
contrast to Mariam and Laila's complex situations.

By the end you are not only left with a tear, but with a fire lit within. 

It is above all a story of hope and of life, the heroism that comes with 

love and the inevitable strife that comes with living. Inspirational, 

outstanding, every person must read this tale. The novel is not a surviving 

tale of two women in a patriarchal society but an emotional thriller with a 

clear social message that makes the work worth reading.