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    A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Novel
    A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Novel
    A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Novel

    Written by Khaled Hosseini

    Narrated by Atossa Leoni

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    After more than two years on the bestseller lists, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel of enormous contemporary relevance.

    A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

    Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heartwrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love—a stunning accomplishment.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMay 22, 2007
    ISBN9780743567619
    A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Novel
    Author

    Khaled Hosseini

    Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980. His first novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, published in forty countries. In 2006 he was named a U.S. envoy to UNHCR, The United Nations Refugee Agency. He lives in northern California.

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    Reviews for A Thousand Splendid Suns

    4.5/5

    1,168 ratings442 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Very easy read but a difficult subject - this is a very grim book about a very grim society in a very troubled part of the world.The ending was formulaic and rather too easy.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      A moving and heart-breaking tale of a group of people in Afghanistan, spanning multiple decades. It depicts the unjust treatment of women and brings attention to the day-to-day lives of Afghani people, whom for many are just the faceless population of a country we hear about in the media.I appreciate the efforts of Mr. Hosseini in helping to make the world aware of the plight of Afgahni people--particularly women--but I found his writing to be awkward and a bit over-rated. A quarter of the way into the book there is suddenly a whole new cast of characters that are introduced and the two main protagonists were rather cliched.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I immediately felt empathy with Miriam and when Laila joined the story it became absolutely 'unputdownable'!

      I thought The Kite Runner was very good, but this just blew that out of the water.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This was an extremely powerful book. I knew a small amount about life for women under the Taliban. Mostly what I knew came from news reports after 9/11. This novel did an excellent job of explaining how life for Afghanistani women changed from Communist rule to present-day (2003). The author did such an excellent job portraying the two female characters and their emotions, I had to remind myself that the author was a man. I had to take the story in small doses though because it is a tear-jerker.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A very good book on Afghanistan, from 1959 to about 1990, told through the eyes of two generations of women. It's a bit disjointed in the middle. The last 80 pages are magnificent. In my opinion [The Kite Runner] was better.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this sad tale of two Afghani women living in Kabul. The story begins in 1975 and ends in the early 2000's and tells how these two women's lives become intertwined, the events that lead them together, and how they come to love each other as mother and daughter. I learned about what was going on from the people of Afghanistan's point of view during that time, and found it very interesting. It was sad, but I would recommend it!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I couldn't help but notice that Goodreads doesn't categorize this book as historical fiction, which is clearly is, covering life in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion all the way to the point where America is already losing ground to the Taliban. The story centers on two key women whose lives come together in indelible ways. The early part of the book was written so extremely simply that I felt I was reading something that might have been appropriate to me as a sixth grader. As the characters lives became more involved, so did the writing. Eventually, you have serious adult drama on your hands and serious writing. At a climatic point a key character makes a most significant gesture that affects all the main characters. In my view, at that point the book could have and should have ended. The final pages felt like window dressing to me, stating the obvious, trying to point to a happy ending. It's all the more ironic that the ending gives a much more positive indication of the future than it turns out the historical reality that actually follows. All in all, an epic story well worth reading.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A dramatic story about the lives of two women in Afghanistan. This was the kind of story that made an impression on my mind and will stay with me for some time. The story follows two women, whose lives connect, through the various ruling changes in their country. It shows their lives during the Soviet invasion, the civil wars following the departure of the Russians, and finally the rule of the Taliban. It is amazing to see the horror the people of this country has had to live through. The story puts a human face on the terrible wars that we read about in the news but often do not give a second thought to. As someone who teaches high school history, this is the kind of book I would want my students to read so they can understand that there are families and children just like us that live over there, and that war is almost always bad for all involved.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I found this book just as interesting the second time I read it as I did the first time, 7 years ago. The lives of two women in Afghanistan is central to the action in the novel. The story begins in the 1960s and ends in the 2000s, exploring a time of many changes in the country. Mariam and Laila are very different people yet share a love for their country and eventually for each other. The relationship between the two women changes and develops once their paths cross, affected by the political changes that are going on around them. I found the book touching, but I'm not sure I will read it a third time. The sadness stays with me too long.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I've looked forward to reading the novel which came on the heels of The Kite Runner for quite some time. Let me say this novel is amazing. Hosseini writes of Mariam and Laila, women of Afghanistan, who, due to their station in life, were bound to a life of horrific abuse. Although they could barely tolerate each other at the start they found that together they had a power they didn't know was possible. An emotionally charged read and highly recommended.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A must read for all. Makes you appreciate your family and your country more!!!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Beautifully written, poignant

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Wow. I'm exhausted after reading this. One of very few books that bring tears to my eyes. Magnificent work.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      What an amazing novel and so difficult to pin down my thoughts in a short review. Words such as "liked" "enjoyed" are not fitting words to describe this reading experience. "Spellbinding" and "eye-opening" would seem more appropriate. Set against the backdrop of 30 years of turbulent Afghanistan history (from the early 1970's to the early 2000's), Hosseini vividly portrays those years of unrest, war, oppression and terror through the voices of Mariam and Laila. Every single character experience death and loss of so me kind. One would think that this would make for a very depressing read, and yet, Hosseini manages to intermingle all that is terrible and ugly with a shimmer of love and a ray beam of light. For me, this book is as important for its history lesson as it is in providing a vivid portrayal of Afghan life and terrible oppression of women in Afghan culture. The pain and suffering portrayed is palpable... I lost count of the number of times I found myself flinching along side the characters, and crying with them. Hosseini is truly a gifted storyteller, grabbing the reader's attention with clear, unfussy language. He dazzles the reader with his story, not the words used to convey the story. Through this straightforward presentation, Hossieni provides readers with a fascinating glimpse of daily life in Afghanistan of the time period. Another well written, thought provoking read for me.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Amazing reading! The author drags you down and pulls you up in the air just to be able to pull you down again. Horrifing and beautiful at the same time! I can only say that the author is an amazing writer, would not expect that from a man to be able to talk about women in this way, understand and describe them in such detail, but I guess that makes him even more distinguishable. My admiration goes his way!
    • 4/5
      One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls....
      .
      .
      .
      Loved it
      Khaled Hosseini knows how to break your heart...
      And this one feels more relatable now that the history is repeating itself then just a few years ago?
    • 5/5
      Do NOT miss this one. If you thought Kite Runner was great, this will outdo that! I was reluctant to read both but after falling in love with Kite Runner, thought how can there be a better book especially from the same author? Surprise! This is even better. You will love this book and surprisingly to some, like me, learn more about the history of the people in this great historical fiction novel!
    • 5/5
      O carte care a reusit sa trezeasca multe sentimente unei femei!
    • 5/5
      Amazing story! I really liked this one much better than "The Kite Runner" which really didn't cut me to the heart. This story, however, was devastating in both ugliness and beauty. This book should be required reading for any person who endeavors to have an opinion about the Middle East.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely brilliant.
    • 5/5
      Amazing! Simply amazing
    • 5/5
      Brilliant writing brilliantly narrated. Immensely sad and often revolting story. Very necessary book. We should all read it.
    • 3/5
      This was not a winner for me. Yes, I get it. All Afghan men are cruel, power-hungry monsters who lord over their wives and all Afghan women are abused victims who are only beautiful in their capacity for sacrifice. (See, I've saved you from having to read the book now.)

      If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might call this anti-Afghanistan propaganda. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't actually think this is anti-Afghanistan propaganda. But, with the war and all, publishers don't seem to be trying paint Afghanistan in even a neutral light. Seemingly every recent popular book concerning the territory has this same theme. That makes reading this book an exercise in redundancy. I did not enjoy it and it felt incredibly arrogant to me. I don't care if the author was born (not raised, mind you, but at least born) in Kabul. The whole thing still felt like arrogant judgement against a people who have already had to weather one hell of a storm.

      Even worse, in its attempt to be so quintessentially tragic it was also utterly predictable. All you ever had to do was think what the worst thing that could happen next was and there you had it. Sometimes you didn't even had to do that, the trajectory of the plot-line was so blatantly obvious that it was practically written in neon.
    • 5/5
      Amazing book, beautiful writing and storyline, very heart wrenching.
      The audiobook was choppy at times. Ex. chapter 5 and 6 had a few cut off sentences and jumped all over the place. It’s even missing a huge chunk of the chapter which is key to understanding the plot. I had to supplement the audiobook with the actual book.
    • 5/5
      A Fantastic read. Not only was I moved by Miriam and Laila's stories I was also educated. A sad and heart wrenching tale of the almost wasted lives of two women with a backdrop of horrific wars in Afghanistan and their own homes.
    • 5/5
      This book was great, I've read some good books lately but this on blows just about everything else out of the water. The story is told from two perspectives, that of Mariam and Laila. The story follows these two as they grow up in Afghanistan during the 70s through 20002. Through their eyes we get to see how governmental changes in Afghanistan affect the people that live there. These two women deal with the changes forced upon them in different ways, even as their lives cross paths.This was a very well written story. The characters were very well developed. Hosseini has a way with written word that just captivates you. Not only was the story captivating but it was very emotional. The strings that Hosseini ties around your heart get pulled at continually. I have to admit that I cried quite a few times during this story. I was almost sobbing near the end. Not only does this story give us outsiders a view of what life is like in Afghanistan but it connects us with both women in a way that I became involved in what was happening to them.Great book, I would recommend anyone who hasn't read it to read it.
    • 4/5
      When I finished the Kite Runner I was obsessed with Khaled Hosseini and immediately went to his website to learn everything I could about him. I wanted more, and couldn't wait for him to write another book! A Thousand Splendid Suns didn't disappoint, and offered the same intriguing look into war-torn Afghanistan and a proud people, this time through the story of two women.
    • 5/5
      This book was heartbreaking but I loved it anyway. I was so engrossed in the story that my stomach was in knots at some points. It was also a great lesson in the political history of Afghanistan over that past 30 years. It's a harsh reminder that these are real people whose lives we're interfering with over in the Middle East and that today's wars are not fought on battlefields but in neighborhoods. People are dying in their literal backyards.
    • 3/5
      An incredibly depressing story about two Afghan women living through the numerous regime changes in that country. I will say that this is beautifully written, with compelling characters and rich detail. And I certainly learned a lot about Afghan history and culture. It's just that the story was a big downer, filled with cruelty and regret. Women are horribly mistreated; people are thoughtlessly mean to each other and then never get a chance to apologize for it; and the "happy" ending feels really contrived. So if you're looking for a brutally honest look at the lives of women in Afghanistan, this is probably a pretty good start, but don't go looking for a feel-good story to pass a rainy afternoon. Some of the images will stick with me for a long time.
    • 5/5
      One of the best fiction story ever. By listening to this I realized that how lucky I am and how less my problems are. I'm just strucked by the story. Will live to read it again.