A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

Superb!!!!!

It's a beautiful story of friendship and suffering. it is one of the saddest stories I have ever read but it is so brilliantly told, it's worth every tear!!!!

Brilliant

It's a long time since I read a book this moving. The characters are so convincing I coudn't put it down from beginning to end, I had to keep on reading to see what would become of them. Brilliant.

Fantastic, poignant - get ready to get angry

This is a magnificent story of the plight of women in Afghanistan, both before, during and after the Taliban. It traces the story of Mariam and Laila, both from very different background, but both finding themselves living without freedom, with constant violence and with nothing but their love for one another and the dream of a better life to keep them going.

Books such as this are essential reading because so many of us are ignorant to the every day lives of people living in a war torn country such as Afghanistan. We hear about the victims of regimes, but when you look at stories in newsprint, or hear them on TV whilst you are eating a good dinner, or living your comfortable life, they can be distant. This book, despite it being fiction, allows you to see what it could be like to live in Afghanistan as a woman with very few choices. If you are like me, it will make you furiously angry that in today's modern world people are still treated this way, simply by virtue of the fact that they were born female.

Nevertheless, this book is full of hope. It is beautifully written and demonstrates how the will to survive can prevail, especially when boosted by love, no matter how unexpected. I think this a mature novel written with thought and understanding. I had to keep putting it down to bring my emotions back in check, but I couldn't actually stop until I'd finished.

a thousand slendid suns a truly splendid read

i loved this book, i read the kite runner first and thought it would struggle to be as good, it was different and in my opinion better, the plot has been covered here by other reviewers but i cried at the end, it showed just how futile life can be for women in afghanistan and how the choices are taken, how brutal life can be, i would recommend highly

Really brilliant

I hesitated to read Hosseini's work until I could no longer ignore recommendations. If The Kite Runner is excellent, then A Thousand Splendid Suns is brilliant. It's a moving story of two Afghan women, their personal tragedies and the tragedy of their country descending into enduring conflict. But hope and love endure as well. A must read.