Jamal reviewed A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini
What am I supposed to take away?
2 stars
Content warning Spoilers ahead!
I read this on the recommendation of a woman. Apparently, in her circle, this book is quite popular for the way it shows the hidden injustices against women and the weight they carry in society. To these points I can agree, and I see why someone can have an emotional moment reading this book.
For me however, I found the characters to be mostly flat, and the plot just depressing. I had to force myself to finish it when I was halfway through. The pile-on of horror did not make me think this or feel that, it purely led to disgust and boredom.
One positive take away is the historical context, which made the chronology of events memorable.
I suspect that I was not the target audience for this book. I saw that its fans fall into two camps: those that like it for the historical and humanized look at Afghanistan, and those that related to the women's perspectives in that society. The former did not have that wow effect on me given that I was a bit more knowledgeable on the topic, and the latter fell a bit short of capturing me given the flatness of the characters and the extremes of violence.
