lionali 's review for:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

4.5

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

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This book taught me a lot about Afghanistan history and culture, particularly the tensions across people of different ethnic groups and different religions. When reading this, I'm not thinking about the wars simply through a factual, political/historical lens, but through the lens of people affected by such wars. Particularly women. 
This book was pretty short, but I got so attached to both Mariam and Laila. Both are such beautifully written and developed characters. It was heart wrenching to read really grim, violent parts of the book, but it also forced me to think about how it is/was a reality for many war-impacted civilians. 

This book really made me feel, think, reflect.