A Review of The Book 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'

 Considering the fact that I did not know a substantial amount about the Middle East, besides what I have learned in class thus far, as well as what I have seen on the news, I found Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns extremely eye-opening. Not only did it broaden my horizons with the plethora of cultures represented in the Middle East, it educated me on how middle eastern women are treated today. The book is divided into two sections, both of which are following the daily lives of Mariam, a young girl and Laila, a teenager.

In the first section the author introduces the reader to Mariam, a young girl who lives with Nana. Nana constantly throws her problems on Mariam as a child, she calls her a “harami”, which comes out later to be known as a bastard. Mariam was born out of wedlock to an illegitimate businessman, who has three wives. In the first chapter, Mariam acknowledges the fact that she is the reason her mother’s life is ruined. Personally, Nana wasn’t one of my favorite characters to say. She constantly throws everything on Mariam, her child and not only that she talks down on her father to her. She gets to see her father, I believe every week on Thursdays. He sometimes bring her presents and he tell her stories during their time together. One day, her father didn’t show up to meet her. Mariam decides it’s best if she go see her father at his home, basically she ends up being denied in the home and decides to sleep outside while waiting for her father. I noticed throughout the book, he’s hesitant with Mariam, just because she was born out of wedlock. Things turn for the worst when Nana decides to commit suicide. Mariam is then forced to go live with her father for a short period of time. When his wives decided that they didn’t want her there anymore, they married her off to a guy named Rasheed, whose 20+ years her senior. She’s forced to leave everything and everyone she knows to go be with a stranger. Which, I believe is personally messed up, how dare you let your wives decide for your child? Mariam basically goes throughout the book, believing she deserves nothing better than the life she's living, which is truly heartbreaking. The book gives us the second point of view with Laila, who’s a young girl and she lives down the street from Mariam. I noticed during reading, that Laila’s story is a complete 360 from Mariam. She comes from a family full of love, who’s father is outspoken and believe that women have the right to be educated and to work if they’re willing. Laila falls in love with a guy named Tariq, but all hell breaks loose, when the civil wars in Afghanistan began.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I love how it connects to the material within our history class. Even though the book isn’t based on a true story, I can see Mariam and Laila as real life people experiencing their personal pain. I’m way more interested in learning about the Mujahideen, now that it’s touched surface within our reading. Before reading this book, I didn’t really have any emotion towards the situations happening over there or the middle east in general. I believe that’s because I did see their situations as I did if it were the USA. Maybe, it’s because I personally couldn’t connect myself with these situations. Because, once again I saw their issues through my point of view rather than someone who lives there. A Thousand Splendid Suns made me change my perspective on how I view topics relating to other countries outside of the United States.