A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseni

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseni
384 pages
Finished 7/11/08














I can't even begin to tell you how long I waited to read this book. Actually, you can probably guess - ever since it came out! I have this weird book quirk that generally has me buying only like books. I bought The Kite Runner in paperback, so I have been waiting what seems like forever for ATSS to come out in paperback. However, like The Da Vinci Code before it, it seems the publishers have decided to milk it in hardcover for as long as possible. Grr. I finally broke down earlier this month and bought it.

Overall - I loved it. It was a great story, heartbreaking and eye-opening all at once. Scary to think that all of that really HAS happened in modern day Afghanistan. At times I was reading it and thinking "How could they do that? Women would never stand for it!" But unfortunately, there was just nothing they could do. So sad.

My only complaint about the book is that I actually felt it was too easily written. It was an extremely fast read, even for me, something that The Kite Runner wasn't. It felt a little like ATSS was missing some depth that could have been there. It's a little hard for me to articulate what exactly I thought was missing - blah, me, at a loss for words?

Overall, though, the book was worth the wait, and yes, even worth purchasing in hardcover.

Four stars.