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2000 - 2007 Recommended books Richard and Judy Book Club

A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Books Before Blogging Review

It has been almost a year since I read this moving story about the lives of two women in Afghanistan. I was completely gripped from beginning to end. The two women, Mariam and Laila, were great characters – I was totally drawn into their world. The emotions in this book were very powerful, and as a result this became the most harrowing book I have ever read. I found it much more distressing to read than The Kite Runner, and some of the scenes will stay with me forever.

Highly recommended, but keep a box of tissues handy!

11 replies on “A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini”

Thank you for commenting on my blog for the first time! I look forward to hearing more of your book thoughts in the future!

I adored this book! I have recommended it to all the bookworms I know and every one of them has just loved it!

I would describe it as captivating, un-put-down-able and a real tear jerker. It is the first book that has made me openly cry on the cross trainer at the gym!

I live in Abu Dhabi so it was very interesting for me to read about the darker side of Islam. I found the characters and plot absolutely incredible from the first page.

I can’t recommend this book enough for any woman to read. My husband and I both read The Kite Runner and thought it was great. I preferred this book, but I don’t think it would have affected my husband as much.

The reason why I enjoyed this book was because I now have an idea as to how other people look at Islam. I am a 16 year old Muslim girl and I can tell you that the image created in this book is not a true image of Islam. Us Muslim women are empowered and educated and our lives do not revolve around marriage and sex. We are not locked up in our houses and abused, looking out at the world and feeling lonely. Not all Muslim men are violent and they all do not go looking around for girls who are much younger than them just to satisfy their sexual needs. I actually find the way he wrote about those issues quite disturbing. The Muslims also are portrayed as being the type of people who are constantly at war with each other. Khaled Hosseini could have done a better job by clearly stating that the laws that were mentioned were the Afghani laws and not the Islamic laws. I fear that people all over the world and looking at Islam in a different way now. May God forgive him& I hope that he receives some guidance.

Haseena Paruk, Thank you for such a thoughtful comment. I agree that this book focuses on the darker side of society and that the majority of people do not live like this at all. I don’t think anyone reads this book and ends up thinking all Muslim men are violent. At least I hope they don’t.

Thank you for pointing out that the book focuses on Afgani laws, not Muslim ones. I am ashamed to admit that I couldn’t spot the difference.

I really hope that this book doesn’t have the negative affect that you think it does, but i thank you for drawing this issue to my attention.

When i read A Thousand Splendid Suns, I found it very depressing and sad although it was a very good book. The portrayal of Islam in this book is not true. This is Afghan Law and is all based on a cultural background. Islam is a peaceful religion and none of the propaganda spread about Islam is true. Do not believe everything you hear.

A thousand splendid suns – Heart wrenching, emotional but definitely worth reading! Khaled Hosseini failed to make his readers aware that the practises mentioned in the book(verbal/physical abuse & men do not force younger girls into sex and to marry them) were by the Taliban and not by all Muslims. By this, the whole lot of Muslims are assumed to be as such. I hope in Hosseni’s future books this will be mentioned.
@ the second person who commented, I’m sorry to burst your bubble but I am a Muslim girl and I can assure you that women are not allowed to be beaten by their husbands.

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