Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

This book made me feel a lot of things, but mostly, I felt sad.

I felt sad about the way Mariam's life began and ended. How she deserved better. I felt sad about the way Laila was trapped with Rasheed. How the original course of her life should've been very different and how war and chance took all of it away. I think I related more to her than I did with Mariam.

I felt sad that when they did muster up the courage to run, they ended up back where they started. If they had asked helped from a different man, would he have proven to be an ally? Probably not. Being caught, brought back home and then beaten by Rasheed was realistic, but I desperately hoped against it.

I felt sad about the fact that both Mariam and Laila, were in loveless marriages. Where sex was nothing more than a "coupling" meant to satisfy the man and to give him a boy. I felt sad that the one marriage that had love, was destroyed by depression. Fariba's depression rendered her a dysfunctional mother and wife. And her husband's love for her, would not allow him to leave her and flee with Laila. Perhaps Laila could've lived a different life.

Mostly though, I felt sad about how much war takes. It takes lives, in more than one sense. I have never understood nationalistic movies celebrating war heroes (ie shershaah), I wish people saw how senseless these wars were. Today, Afghanistan is again in the same perilous situation it was in 20 years ago. My heart aches for the people there. I'll end this this review with 2 quotes that struck me the most:

"But when it came to fathers, Mariam had no reassurances to give"

"Like a compass facing north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman"