I don't know if there's any way to read these books without crying. There were times when I shoved the book away because I couldn't read anymore but the story was so gripping that I had to read on.
Salam alaikum readers! If you have been a #nonficiton aficionado all your life and have always been wanting to read more #fiction, I'd suggest you to start with these.
““How seamless seemed love and then came trouble!”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner”
Hosseini is known for writing in a lucid style which still leaves an indelible mark on you. It is melancholic. It is sad. It will leave you overthinking for a long time. It will break and melt you heart. So, BEWARE!
The Kite Runner
I’m going to be honest with you. To read this #book was a constant struggle, not because I didn’t like the writing style or because it was boring. No, if anything “The Kite Runner” was so hard to read because it was so exceptionally painful.
This book made me so sad! I There were times I actually was more than just tempted to stop reading. Honestly, how do you read this book without crying?!
The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through the Soviet military intervention, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.
Two little friends, an unspeakable secret, and a quest for redemption. It is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
It is a very powerful book. It made me think about unpleasant things, it forced me to see the bad and ugly things our world is made of, but it also showed me the good in people and their kindness!
A Thousand Splendid Suns
There are very few books that make me feel a tempest of emotions: make me happy and break my heart in the next; make me chuckle at a few scenes and leave me in tears later, make me love a few characters and hate the others- and this is one such book.
The story was enticing, the narration was flawless, each chapter had a twist so intriguing and pithy that I was compelled to read further. It shows the progression of life in Afghanistan from the Soviet takeover in 1980s through post 9/11 Taliban control. All of this is through the eyes of two women trying to live a normal and peaceful life just like anyone in the world wants.
The purpose of the book is to explore the multifaceted difficulties #Afghan women tend to face in their everyday lives, such as their lack of rights, their suffering from domestic violence, and their endurance of patriarchal issues.
On the whole, this book is extremely thought-provoking and not easy to digest, heart-breaking, heart-clenching and the story hits you like punches to the gut.
“Each snowflake was a sigh heard by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. All the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how women suffer.”
And The Mountains Echoed
Every so often a book comes around that rocks you to your core. It makes you cry, laugh, think, feel and dream so intensely that when it is over you wonder where that life has gone.
The novel is made up of a series of linked and interlinked stories about members of this one family, their descendants and people whose lives they touch. Hosseini takes us back and forwards in time but each episode tells a whole story of one of the characters.
This made the book feel in some ways like a collection of short stories rather than a novel, but Hosseini brings us round in a perfect circle and the last few chapters bring all these disparate episodes into one immensely moving whole. (Resonates to 'This is Us')
A beautiful and very moving book that brought me to tears on several occasions, this isn’t fundamentally about politics or war; it is about the unforgettable people who populate its pages – about humanity.
“They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.”
Oh BTW, I read this one while I was travelling in the mountains. Can't tell you how surreal that felt.