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A review by wafaasher
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
4.0
I had no idea what this book was about prior to reading it except that it was written by Khaled Hosseini and (obviously) some parts of the story were set in Afghanistan. I was pleasantly surprised by the book as it wasn't as plot-driven as I had expected, yet it was immensely intriguing and gripping.
This book is character-driven and even though I usually read books with a lot of action, adventure, drama and a bit of romance, i.e. books entirely different from And the Mountains Echoed, I actually really liked it. The characters of this book were realistic and did realistic (often wrong) things and faced the consequences. Not all of them had happy endings or sudden epiphanies to change into better people, but that was all okay because that is how the real world is.
I liked how long each chapter was and each told the story of a different character, sometimes in the third person perspective and sometimes in the first. Even though there were many characters with different back stories, I didn't mix them up because each one of them was so well-written and unique.
The only thing that bothered me was that this book had loads of sub-plots but lacked a main one. Sure, you could say the whole thing with Pari and Abdullah was the main conflict but not all stories contributed to it (e.g. Idris' story) and felt slightly redundant. Don't get me wrong; they were still very interesting and I enjoyed reading them a lot but there was still something really important missing. Instead of all the loose-ends coming together at the end, as I would've liked, every character's story was concluded at the end of each chapter.
Even though I really enjoyed this book, I felt like it lacked the x-factor. Nevertheless, this book was original, extremely engaging and had great messages. Definitely worth a read!
This book is character-driven and even though I usually read books with a lot of action, adventure, drama and a bit of romance, i.e. books entirely different from And the Mountains Echoed, I actually really liked it. The characters of this book were realistic and did realistic (often wrong) things and faced the consequences. Not all of them had happy endings or sudden epiphanies to change into better people, but that was all okay because that is how the real world is.
I liked how long each chapter was and each told the story of a different character, sometimes in the third person perspective and sometimes in the first. Even though there were many characters with different back stories, I didn't mix them up because each one of them was so well-written and unique.
The only thing that bothered me was that this book had loads of sub-plots but lacked a main one. Sure, you could say the whole thing with Pari and Abdullah was the main conflict but not all stories contributed to it (e.g. Idris' story) and felt slightly redundant. Don't get me wrong; they were still very interesting and I enjoyed reading them a lot but there was still something really important missing. Instead of all the loose-ends coming together at the end, as I would've liked, every character's story was concluded at the end of each chapter.
Even though I really enjoyed this book, I felt like it lacked the x-factor. Nevertheless, this book was original, extremely engaging and had great messages. Definitely worth a read!