This book is about two women, Miriam and Laila, who are married to the same abusive man, Rasheed, in Kabul. The two women are about twenty years apart in age, and the book explores their lives prior to, during, and after their marriage to Rasheed, spanning several decades of Afghanistan’s turbulent history. Pretty much anything I say beyond that would be a spoiler, so I’ll stop there.

This is the first thing I’ve read by Hosseini. I don’t know how this one compares to his other book, The Kite Runner. I don’t know which people like better. I have heard this one called brilliant. While I think it was a good book, and certainly had me reading along pretty fast, I’m not sure I could call it brilliant. For one, the writing was average, and the author seemed to have a fascination with certain bodily functions (always a turnoff for me). Two, American idioms found their way into this book that is entirely about Afghan culture, and that kept throwing me off center. Three, there was a certain amount of sensationalism in it, which made it feel less poignant. The story was also a bit average for me, but I’ve read a lot of books about Afghanistan, so perhaps to others, this would feel more unique.

These drawbacks were relatively minor, though. For the most part, this was an interesting look at the political and social climate in Afghanistan through multiple governments. Things went from okay, to bad, to worse, to terrifying, to oppressive. It illustrated how terrible the Taliban is, and gave me another reason to be very thankful we aren’t ruled in our country by someone’s interpretation of a religious text. (Most of the time, anyway.) Hosseini also did a good job showing the terrible situation that many women faced in a country that cared very little about them. Instead of making them simple victims, he made both Miriam and Laila come alive, both with very different personalities, upbringings, and ways of dealing with their horrible homelife. They evolved over time, they grew, they learned. By the end of the book, I almost felt like I knew them, they were so real.

So all in all, this was a good book, and a decent characterization of a country very different from ours. I will probably read The Kite Runner at some point in the future.