enqi ☾⋆˚*̣̩✩'s Reviews > A Thousand Splendid Suns

Each snowflake was a sigh heard by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. All the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how women suffer.

Poignant, stunning, and heartrending. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS was one of the best and most meaningful books I've read. Beginning from one woman's impossibly sad story, the book slowly weaves in a tale of two women whose lives intersect when they are both married to the same cruel, bitter man. By outlining the solidarity and camaraderie of the female spirit, it skilfully navigates all the themes and values regarding gender identity, disparity, and entrenched patriarchal mindsets that have been painfully pertinent societal issues for a long time. It reminds me every day that in a world full of prejudice, there is still beauty. That in a world full of hatred, there is still selflessness. That in a world full of suffering, there is still hope.

I'd like to start off by saying that I absolutely loved this book. With every page I read my heart was in my mouth and my stomach felt like it would drop to my shoes any moment. But I loved this book. I loved this book. It is a beautiful and enlightening story filled to the brim with hope, even beneath its painful, heart-wrenching emotional rawness. How strange, because this was a book where I dared not to turn the page, but I kept flipping and breaking my own heart anyway.

“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS tells of the oppression of women in Afghanistan and the injustice with which they are treated -- of how their only way to social status and approval is to bear a male heir. Mariam, one of the main characters, has to be one of the saddest characters in literature. Born a bastard child to a very wealthy man, she has faced being called "harami" (an insult) her whole life, been shunned and discriminated and thought of as ignorant and worthless, even by her own birth father and her family. Finally, she is married off to a man named Rasheed, who is violent, rude, abusive and just plain mean (honestly, I wanted to kick him in the face throughout the whole book). He sees her only as a tool for breeding his heirs and mistreats, gr4pes and severely abuses her, even more so when they find out she is sterile.

If I had been used, discarded and abused by everyone around me my entire life, I would have become a bitter shell of a girl, or at the very least develop severe trust issues. But despite life being categorically unfair to her, and despite facing nothing but hardship her whole life, Mariam's personality is so beautiful that it completely broke my heart. Unfazed by the betrayal of almost everyone she knows and the misfortune that she is constantly granted, Mariam remains resigned, but most of all an extremely resilient, selfless, humble, and kind person. When Rasheed takes a second wife, Laila, the two women despise each other at first, but soon unite against their husband's verbal and physical and emotional abuse. Mariam, being self-sacrificial, often tried to protect Laila and bore the brunt of Rasheed's anger.

The book ended in the most heartbreaking way possible and yet it was so fitting to Mariam's utterly stoic, compassionate and sacrificial personality that I just sat there and bawled. I couldn't help it. I somehow knew in my bones that Mariam would make the ultimate sacrifice - (view spoiler)[ to turn herself in to the Taliban and be sentenced to death so that Laila and her children could go free and find happiness with Laila's soul mate, Tariq. I loved Mariam then, loved her because she was a flower even with all the acid that life had thrown at her; she'd never let her kindness wilt, and at the end she was thinking of not her own, but Laila's happiness. I didn't stop crying for days.

(view spoiler)[

Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings.

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Suffice it to say that I was a complete wreck after reading this. I'm still a complete wreck.

I thought at first that A Thousand Splendid Suns would be a book of brutality and depression - but it is not. It is an unabashed display of the beauty of the human spirit, and the resilient strength of the two female main characters in this story made me truly realise that what defines a woman are her actions and values, and nothing else. When I turned the last page it occurred to me that this story is as much a reflection of the strength that women are capable of as it is a tale of hope; a tale of how flowers can grow even in the most barren cracks, and hearts find ways to connect even amidst a brutal regime and a country torn apart by war.

"Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always."

🎧✩˖°🌷✨ PRE-REVIEW ♡
As I predicted, this book ended my slump, shattered my heart into a thousand little pieces and put me back together at the same time. I'm crying like a baby after reading it even though I already know everything that happens 😭😭😭


🐋🐚☾⋆⁺₊ PRE-READ ♡ | Since I've been bedridden for a week I figured I'd reread one of my favorite books and get my heart broken for the third time 🥹🫶🏻 Please let this end my slump!!! (hide spoiler)]