latest read: and the mountains echoed

I have been waiting to get this book for so long. 

So when I saw the book on discounted price via online purchase, I quickly got to it.

Just like all other books from Khaled, this is another excellent read. 

It is without a doubt a book you cannot put down until you get to the end. 

I was hooked from the start and by the end, it brought tears to my eyes.

I love how each character introduced in the story is somehow related to the characters that the book starts and ends with. 

You are brought to varied places and life histories of each character and it's just wonderful to read about them. 

Khaled has a remarkable way of telling a stroy; the same way I feel about JK Rowling.

These are two authors that have not disappointed me thus far.

latest read - a thousand splendid suns

A quick storyline of this book (obtained from http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/fiction/fr/1000suns.htm)

This book is a powerful and enchanting novel by the intellegent author: Khaled Hosseni.


This book follows two women, Mariam and Laila who share and unbreakable bond. The novel is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on Mariam, the second and fourth parts focus on Laila, and the third part switches focus between Mariam and Laila with each chapter.


Mariam lives in a kolba on the outskirts of Herat with her mother. Jalil, her father, is a wealthy man who lives in town with three wives and several children. Because Mariam is his illegitimate daughter, she cannot live with them, but Jalil visits her every Thursday. On her fifteenth birthday, Mariam wants her father to take her to see Pinocchio at his movie theater. When he does not show up, she hikes into town and goes to his house. He refuses to see her, and she ends up sleeping on the porch. In the morning, Mariam returns home to find that her mother has hanged herself out of fear that her daughter has deserted her. Mariam is then taken to live in her father's house. Jalil arranges for her to be married to Rasheed, a shoemaker from Kabul who is thirty years her senior. In Kabul, Mariam becomes pregnant seven successive times, but is never able to carry a child to term, and Rasheed gradually becomes more abusive.


In the same neighborhood live a girl named Laila and a boy named Tariq, who are close friends, but careful of social boundaries. War comes to Afghanistan, and Kabul is bombarded by rocket attacks. Tariq's family decides to leave the city, and the emotional farewell between Laila and Tariq ends with them making love. Laila's family also decides to leave Kabul, but as they are packing a rocket destroys the house, kills her parents, and severely injures Laila. Laila is taken in by Rasheed and Mariam. After recovering from her injuries, Laila discovers that she is pregnant with Tariq's child. She arranges to marry Rasheed, who is eager to have a young and attractive second wife, and hopes to pass her unborn child off as his. Laila, who has been told that Tariq is dead, gives birth to Aziza, a daughter. Rasheed is unhappy and suspicious, and he soon becomes abusive toward Laila. Mariam and Laila eventually become confidants. They plan to run away from Rasheed and leave Kabul, but they are caught at the bus station. Rasheed beats them and deprives them of water for several days, almost killing Aziza.


A few years later, Laila gives birth to Zalmai, Rasheed's son. The Taliban has risen to power, and there is a drought, and living conditions in Kabul become poor. Rasheed's workshop burns down, and he is forced to take jobs he is ill-suited for. The family sends Aziza to an orphanage. Then one day, Tariq appears outside the house. He and Laila are reunited, and their passions flare anew. When Rasheed returns home from work, Zalmai tells his father about the visitor. Rasheed starts to savagely beat Laila, so Mariam kills Rasheed with a shovel. Laila and Tariq leave for Pakistan with the children. Mariam confesses to killing her husband and is executed. After the fall of the Taliban, Laila and Tariq return to Afghanistan. They stop in the village where Mariam was raised, and discover a package that Mariam's father left behind for her: a videotape of Pinocchio, a small pile of money and a letter. Laila reads the letter and discovers that Jalil regretted sending Mariam away.


Laila and Tariq return to Kabul and fix up the orphanage, where Laila works as a teacher. Laila is pregnant with her third child, and if it is a girl, it is suggested she will be named Mariam.

The first award-winning novel by Khalid - The Kite Runner - was an enjoyable read and so it was without thinking that I grabbed this book. As predicted, this book is as good a read as his first novel. I sacrificed sleep. I couldn't put this book down. I needed to know the journey of Mariam and Laila, what the ending of this tale will be and in just two short days (which are technically working days), I'm done with the book. In reading this book, I could feel the suffering of both Mariam and Laila and at several points in the story, they brought tears to my eyes. Are what being described here do actually exist? Sad to say, I believe that the type of suffering they suffered actually happened to someone in real life. What a life...

latest read - the kite runner

The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel. It focuses on the relationship between two Afghan boys --- Amir, the novel’s narrator and the son of a prosperous Kabul businessman, and Hassan, the son of Ali, a servant in the household of Amir’s father. Amir is a Pashtun and Sunni Muslim, while Hassan is a Hazara and a Shi’a.

Despite their ethnic and religious differences, Amir and Hassan grow to be friends, although Amir is troubled by Hassan’s subservience, and his relationship with his companion, one year his junior, is ambivalent and complex.

Amir only played with Hassan when there was no one else with them and he would not invite Hassan to play with his other friends. Within himself, Amir was confused to the type of relationship he had with Hassan. Were they really friends or was this a more master-slave relationship?

The other source of tension in Amir’s life is his relationship with Baba, his hard-driving and demanding father and also the inability in Amir - physically and mentally - to be the son that Baba wants and expects him to be. To Amir, he was a disappointment and a failure to his Baba.

Desperate to win his father’s affection and respect, Amir turns to the sport of kite flying, and at the age of 12, with the assistance of Hassan, he wins the annual tournament in Kabul. But Amir’s victory soon is tarnished when he witnesses a vicious assault against his friend.

Hassan had raced through the streets of Kabul to retrieve the last kite Amir had sliced from the sky and make Amir double the winner than he already is. In his pursuit of the last kite, he was met with thugs who physically and sexually abused him. Amir witnessed this horrible act and failed to come to his aid.

That was the moment at which the friendship between Amir and Hassan took a downward spiral. They did not hang out together although Hassan tried somewhat to restore some sort of communication and connection with Amir. But consumed by his guilt, Amir just could not reconnect with Hassan. Amir’s cowardice is compounded by a later act of betrayal - placing money under the mattress of Ali and Hassan and thus accusing them of theft - caused Ali and Hassan to leave their home, and he now faces the nightmare prospect of bearing the burden of his ill-fated choices for the rest of his life.

In 1981, following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Amir and Baba flee the country for California, where Amir attends college, marries and becomes a successful novelist. Amir’s world is shaken in 2001 when he receives a call from his father’s best friend, informing him that “There is a way to be good again.” That call launches him on a journey to rescue Hassan’s son Sohrab, orphaned by the brutal Taliban, and at the same time redeem himself from the torment of his youthful mistakes. What Amir learnt in this journey - although I must say that I suspected this from the get-go - was that Baba was the biological father of Hassan. Amir and Hassan were half-brothers.

See, the physical abuse that Hassan endured was traumatic and damaging but he lived true to himself and being always truthful, faithful and pure at heart. Amir, on the other hand, lived a life of continued guilt and was never truly happy although he was married and quite successful professionally.
To me, the first half of this book was really engaging and descriptive in terms of the relationship between Amir and Hassan. But the moment Amir and Baba fled to US, the story around them were not as outstanding as while they were in Afganistan. In fact, the journey to find Sohrab was just too quick and rushed. It felt the the author just wanted the story to end and for Amir to finally find Sohrab. So I personally give the first half of the book an A but the second half a C.