A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beautiful and sad without being devastating. This is a feminist novel about religious and political fanaticism. It's a novel about how Afghanistan's people were devastated by the Cold War tug-of-war between America, Russia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. It's about the disappointments of family, and the depths of friendship. Even though I gave them the same rating, I liked this one better than Kite Runner.

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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this novel. Hosseini did a good job of writing about some of the complications of friendship and family. I could relate to the experience of immigrants and refugees trying to adjust to a new country, culture, and language.

The setting of Afghanistan in two different times was also really interesting. I've read some of the history of the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan but I still think this book could have benefitted from explaining a bit more clearly what was going politically to understand the relationship to what was happening in the plot of the story.

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