A stirring read almost impossible to resist.

Entertainment weekly Remarkable-Time Bewitching- San Francisco Chronicle

Overwhelmingly Powerful The Charlotte Observer

Uplifting,

Enlightening, Universal- Fort Worth Star-Telegram

A brave, honorable, big-hearted book.- The Washington Post

Characters:

Mariam, an ethnic Tajik born in Herat, 1959. She is the illegitimate child
of Jalil and Nana, and suffers shame throughout her childhood because of the circumstances of her birth.

Nana is Mariam's mother, who used to be a servant in Jalil's house and

had an affair with him. She hangs herself when Mariam is fifteen, after Mariam journeys to Jalil's house on her birthday, which Nana perceives to be betrayal.

Mullah Faizullah, a Sufi, is Mariam's elderly Koran teacher and friend.

He dies of natural causes in 1989.

Jalil is Mariam's father, a wealthy man who had three wives before he
had an affair with Nana. He marries Mariam to Rasheed after Nana's death, but later regrets sending her away. He dies in 1987

Laila is an ethnic Tajik. Born in 1978 to Hakim and Fariba, she is a

beautiful and intelligent girl coming from a family in which the father is university-educated and a teacher. Her life becomes tied to Mariam's when she marries Rasheed as his second wife.

Hakim is Laila's father. He is a well-educated and progressive school

teacher. He is killed in a rocket explosion along with Fariba.

Fariba is Laila's mother. In Part One, during her brief meeting with
Mariam, she is shown as cheerful, but her happy nature is brutally disrupted when her two sons, Ahmad and Noor, leave home to go to war and are later killed. She spends nearly all of her time in bed mourning her sons until the Mujahideen are victorious. She is killed in a rocket explosion along with Hakim.

Rasheed is an ethnic Pashtun, a shoemaker, and the antagonist of the

novel. He marries Mariam through an arrangement with Jalil and later marries Laila as well. After years of domestic abuse towards the two women, Mariam bludgeons Rasheed to death with a shovel during a violent struggle.

Tariq, an ethnic Pashtun born in 1976, is a boy who grew up in Kabul

with Laila. He lost a leg to a land mine at age 5. They eventually evolve from best friends to lovers and, after a decade of separation, are married and expecting a child by the end of the novel.

Aziza is the daughter of Laila and Tariq, conceived when Laila was 14.
Her conception incites Laila to marry Rasheed when the news of Tariq's alleged death arrives in order to be avoid rocket fire, prostitution, or starvation and to hide the child's illegitimacy. Aziza is born in the spring of 1993 and becomes a peacemaking figure between Mariam and Laila when her cries for Mariam's attention trigger Mariam's maternal instinct and respect for Laila.

Zalmai, born in September 1997, is Laila and Rasheed's spoiled son.

Despite the conditions presented onto his mother and figurative aunt (Mariam), Zalmai idolizes Rasheed and is unaware of the fact that Mariam killed him. At the end of the novel, Zalmai continuously asks about Rasheed to Laila, who lies to him saying he simply left for some time. After initially blaming Tariq for his father's mysterious disappearance, he comes to accept Tariq as a father-figure.

Plot:
The tale is divided into four parts. The first part focuses exclusively on Mariam, the second and fourth parts focus on Laila, and the third part switches focus between Mariam and Laila with each chapter. Mariam lives in a kolba on the outskirts of Herat with her mother. Jalil, her father, is a wealthy man who lives in town with three wives and several children. Mariam is his illegitimate daughter, she cannot live with them, but Jalil visits her every Thursday. On her fifteenth birthday, Mariam wants her father to take her to see Pinocchio at his movie theater. When he does not show up, she hikes into town and goes to his abode. He declines to see her, and she ends up sleeping on the front porch. In the morning, Mariam returns home to find that her mother has hanged herself out of fear that her daughter has deserted her. Mariam is then taken to live in her father's house. Jalil arranges for her to be married to Rasheed, a shoemaker from Kabul who is thirty years her senior. In Kabul, Mariam becomes pregnant seven successive times, but is never able to carry a child to term, and Rasheed gradually becomes more abusive and tempered as everything turns to a failure. In the same neighborhood live a girl named Laila and a boy named Tariq, who are close friends, but careful of social boundaries. War comes to Afghanistan, and Kabul is bombarded by rocket attacks. Tariq's family decides to leave the city, and the emotional farewell between Laila and Tariq ends with them making love on the couch. Laila's family also decides to leave Kabul, but as they are packing a rocket destroys the house, kills her parents, and severely injures Laila. Laila is taken in by Rasheed and Mariam. After recovering from her injuries, Laila discovers that she is pregnant with Tariq's child. After being told that Tariq is dead, she agrees to marry Rasheed, who is eager to have a young and attractive second wife, and hopes to have a child with her. When

Laila gives birth to a daughter, Aziza, Rasheed is displeased and suspicious, for the want of a son. He soon becomes abusive toward Laila. Mariam and Laila eventually become confidantes and best associates. They plan to run away from Rasheed and leave Kabul, but they are caught at the bus station. Rasheed beats them and deprives them of water for several days, almost killing Aziza, Lailas daughter. A few years later, Laila gives birth to Zalmai, Rasheed's son. The Taliban has risen to power, and there is a drought, and living conditions in Kabul become poor. Rasheed's workshop burns down, and he is forced to take jobs he is ill-suited for. Rasheed sends Aziza to an orphanage. Then one day, Tariq appears outside the house. He and Laila are reunited, and their passions flare anew. When Rasheed returns home from work, Zalmai tells his father about the visitor. Rasheed starts to savagely beat Laila. To save her friend, Mariam kills Rasheed with a shovel by hitting it hard on his head. Afterwards, Mariam confesses to killing Rasheed, in order to draw attention away from Laila and Tariq, and is executed, while Laila and Tariq leave for Pakistan with Aziza and Zalmai. After the fall of the Taliban, Laila and Tariq return to Afghanistan. They stop in the village where Mariam was raised, and discover a package that Mariam's father left behind for her: a videotape of Pinocchio, a small pile of money and a letter. Laila reads the letter and discovers that Jalil regretted sending Mariam away. Laila and Tariq return to Kabul and fix up the orphanage, where Laila starts working as a teacher. Laila is pregnant with her third child, and if it is a girl, it is suggested she will be named Mariam.

Setting:
The setting of the story leads us to the Middle East, specifically in the land of Afghanistan. In the novel, there is an ongoing war between the Taliban against the Afghan army. With this crisis, many men are put to test. Millions are forced to leave home, loved ones dying before their very eyes, children- lost and put to labor. Education is then very hard to attain. Women were not allowed to leave their homes to take care of their offspring. Through this battle of guns and spears, the heart of the nation is torn and scarred.

Lessons Learned:
For almost three decades now, the Afghan expatriate disaster has been one of the most ruthless around the world. Warfare, famine, revolution and cruelty forced millions of people-like Tariq and his family in this tale- to dispose of their homes and run away from Afghanistan to settle in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. At the altitude of the exodus, as many as eight million Afghans were living abroad as refugees. Today, more than two million Afghan refugees remain in Pakistan. Poverty and war are indeed very striking stories. I become conscious that I am very lucky to be born safely unlike Mariam. I am blessed with a country at the state of peace. I took in the idea that I am sanctified to be in a free life where I could choose. I am happy to know that I have the privilege to attain a proper education. I am at bliss to see that I am given the chance to spend a democratic life.

Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-born American novelist and physician. He has lived in the United States since he was fifteen years old and is an American citizen. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide. His second, A Thousand Splendid Suns, was released on May 22, 2007. In 2008, the book was the bestselling novel in the UK (as of April 11, 2008), with more than 700,000 copies sold. When Khaled Hosseini was a child, he read a great deal of Persian poetry as well as Persian translations of novels ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series. Hosseini's "very fond memories of his childhood" in peaceful pre-Soviet era Afghanistan, as well as his personal experiences with Afghanistan's Hazara people led to the writing of his first novel, The Kite Runner. One Hazara man, named Hossein Khan, worked for the Hosseini when they were living in Iran. When Khaled Hosseini was in third grade, he taught Khan to read and write. Although his relationship with Hossein Khan was brief and rather formal, Hosseini's fond memories of this relationship served as an inspiration for the relationship between Hassan and Amir in The Kite Runner.

Conflicts

The conflict in the story tracks down to many scenarios. But the most highlighted conflict happens in the 3rd part of the tale. This clash happened in the residence of Rasheed. Laila and Mariam have been caught and guilty of escaping from home due to their husbands cruelty. Rasheed targets on his second wife, Laila, to be tortured. But to prevent her associate and only friend to be at pain, Mariam swiftly grabbed a shovel and continued to hit Rasheed hard until he moved no more, Laila helped too. Right after, Mariam in order to save Laila, surrendered herself to the police and convinced them that Laila had nothing to do with this crime for them to be reunited with Tariq and escape the Afghan territory. Mariam was subjected to be exiled.

Resolution:
As what have Mariam Jo told Laila to do, she and Tariq left the place to start their life all over. Without Mariam, it was Tariq, Laila, Zalmai, Aziza and yet another baby in Lailas womb. The last scene in the story is her family, finally at peace. Zalmai wonders where his father has gone, but finally took in Tariq as his father. Laila becomes a teacher, when her baby is born and is a girl, she promises to name her Mariam.

Theme: There is always light at the end of a dark tunnel.

The tale started with a shed of tears, but it ended in hope. Its true when they say life is a hell-hole, but at times it can be a bliss. Life is a series of victories and defeats. We will never know the paradox of the future, but we can make it out of our present agendas. So, it really isnt about destiny, but instead of what we make out of life.