Sunday 7 April 2013

Bookworm

I love to read. Sadly, I find very little time or energy to read during term time and rely on the holidays to catch up. This holiday, I finally made time for Khaled Hosseini's masterpieces, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

               


These books certainly merit all the hype that surrounds them. They are beautifully written, and conjure such striking images of the Middle East and its most vulnerable and disenfranchised people during times of war, that they will stay with me forever. They are incredibly emotive, shocking and thought-provoking, so that reading them is utterly compelling. If you are book shy, don't be put off by the content, they are not heavy going in the slightest - I raced through them - and ultimately, these desperately sad stories are uplifting and life-affirming.

My only criticism, and it's a small one since it doesn't detract from the power of the stories or the quality of the writing, is that these two books appear somewhat formulaic in their structure, so that you have a sense of déja vu as the tales unfold. This is, however, understandable considering their common settings and themes, and didn't in any way diminish my enjoyment of them.

I appreciate that these are not new releases, and that I am embarrassingly behind the times having only just read them myself, but I urge you to do the same if you haven't already, especially since Hosseini has recently published his third novel, And the Mountains Echoed.

Happy reading, and please post a comment with any of your recommended reads/thoughts on these books below!

pp x

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