"A Thousand Splendid Suns" Review

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" was a huge surprise, as it was suppose to be nanmed "Dreaming in Titanic City" so I worried about the next Hossieni novel, when I saw this, I thought he released one, and went on to the next. Luckily it was not that I was being left behind, but rather I was right on time for the next installment in Khaled Hossieni's stories about Afghanistan.
Now, I have a love for this author's work. Hossieni's style truly makes you appreciate the fact that some authors do in fact have a talent in this world today/ Hossieni is an instand modern classic, and I would not be shocked if his works are even used as required reqading in some colleges and high schools about the country.
The novel, " A Thousand Splendid Suns" is about two women whos' lives are intervened by tragedy and harship. Mariam and Lalia find themselves under the smae roof, and married to the same husband through a twist of fate that forces them both to learn to deal with each other's prescence. The novel has four parts: the first part is told through the perspective of Mariam, from a little child up to her marriage with her cruel husband, Rasheed. SPOILER WARNING: The sory of Mariam takes the worst turn when her mother commits suicide, and she goes off to live with her father, Jalil. Her father treats her well, but at the same times, acts like she is not his daughter, since she is a hamrami, or a "bastard". This in turn, leads to her farther making her sleep one night out on the street. Since her p[rescence prings forthh shame to Jalil's family, she is soon married off to Rasheed, who is a shoemaker in Kabul. Since Mariam has lived in a kolba most of her life, near the city of Herat, she does not want to be married off at the age of 15 to a man of around 45, more than twice her age. With the climax of the first part of the novel over, we are then introduced to Lalia in the second part of the book.
Lalia grew up in Kabul, and was a trtacted to her childhood friend, Tajik. Tarjik had an amputated leg, and need a prostehtic one to walk around. Due to beign the victim of a mine, like many other children in that era. Tajik was highly protective of his friend, Lalia, and even would threaten the bullies that picked on her in school. Lalia came from a background of an educated, but considerably soft father, and a mother that was like a comatose victim, ever since her two songs went off to fight the Soviets in the jihad (Holy War). Lalia by horrible misforutnes becomes Rasheed's second wife, to find out more, you'll have to read the novel.
The third part of the novel switches between the persepctives of the two wives, which shows their contrasting views, and Lalia's immaturity, and Mariam's aged wisdom. The story progresses much in this part of the story, leading into the amazing climax. END SPOILER
The novel goes through a lot of time, pretty fast, as the story starts out in the mid sixites, and finishes around 2003. So about forty years of times passes through this novel. The novel flows well, and Hosseini makes the literature come to life with not only a lot of descirption, but the imagery and symbolism is perhaps better than was in his first novel, "The Kite Runner". Not much more can be said about this book is positive, since there are so many things that specifcially make this story show Hosseini's talent as a storyteller, but ther are some very molecular flaws that I have noticed. The main issue that I had with the story, was that some of the words used in Fashi did not have an English word to describe its meaning. Unless i missed it, I could not see what the word hamshira meant, but again, such a minor issue, that google can help you decipher.