A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

It has been a while since I have read a more serious book so I was a little relunctant to start this novel thinking it would be boring compared to all the other books I have been reading. This book was referred to me through BzzAgent, an online word-of-mouth website. I did enjoy this book and was able to understand the life of two women living in Afghanistan leading up to 9/11. It was a tragic story about Mariam's life. She was born a harami, an illigitimate child, living in pretty much isolation on a hill with her mentally disturbed mother. Her father visits every week giving Mariam hope of a loving father. When she is 15 she goes to visit her father who refuses to let her in his home. That night her mother hangs herself and Mariam finds herself being married off to a much older man in a faraway city. She is unable to have children and is hated by her husband and beaten regularly.

The other woman we follow is Laila, she is much younger than Mariam and lives in teh same neighborhood. She ends up sleeping with her love at age 14 before he leaves with his family to flee Afghanistan. Weeks later her family is killed and she finds herself in Mariams home as the second wife to cover her pregnancy. The rest of the novel follows the two of them as they struggle to survive and get along. I don't want to elaborate more on the story in fear of ruining it, but it leaves you sad, but happy at the same time.