A Thousand Splendid Suns

The book starts with Mariam, a young girl living in Herat, Afghanistan, with her bitter mother. Mariam was born out of wedlock when Jalil, a wealthy man slept with his servant. She spends her days eagerly waiting to see her father, which visits once a week. She loves him dearly and her mother always warned her that he doesn't treat her as his other children. One day Mariam went to her father's house but he wouldn't see her, and after spending the night outside his house she went back home only to find her mother had committed suicide. Mariam's story continues when at 15 years old, Jalil and his wives marry her to Rasheed, a widow which is much older than herself and lives in Kabul. Things didn't turn out right for Mariam in Kabul either. After she had a miscarriage Rasheed turned into a violent man but Mariam was strong and went through it. When Rasheed married Laila, a much younger girl, Mariam feels threatened but eventually they become the best of friends and help eachother to endure Rasheed's bad temper. They plan to run away to Pakistan together but this doesn't work out and when they return home Rasheed locks them up both. This was a very sad story during the Soviet occupation and then the reigh of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the author paints a true picture of the unimmaginable sorrow that the people in this country had to go through in these times of war as well as how women are treated by men like Rasheed. I was appalled by Mariam and Laila's unfortunate story and I was hoping that in the end everything turns out right for the two. I was dismayed when I found out Mariam's fate after her selfless act to save Laila from Rasheed. On the other hand I was happy that Laila finally got married to her childhood friend Tariq and together they had a family and were helping to fix up the orphanage in Kabul. This is another book by Khaled Hosseini that I enjoyed reading thoroughly. I like how Hosseini's writing seems to just flow and how the ending of this book was happy and sad at the same time. I hope we will be seeing more books of this kind from this author written with the same passion that The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns holds.

The Kite Runner

An emotional story based in Afghanistan about a boy, Amir, and his struggle to live up to his father's expectations. The 12 year old Amir is so determined to win his father's affection that he even turns his back on his best friend Hassan when he sees him being raped by the neighbourhood bully. Amir can't live with his actions and what he did haunts him until he is a grown man. When Rahim Khan, his father's long time friend, asks him to return home, Amir sets on a mission "to be good again" and is determined to make things right this time. I felt this story is told with such passion and it gives a true picture of the lives in Afghanistan. By showing the situation in Afghanistan and Amir's life after he moved to America, this book makes you realize how little you know about this country that you hear so much about. It is beautifully written and I was hooked right away, wanting to know what happens next. It is heartbreaking reading how loyal Hassan was to Amir, only to be betrayed by him. What captured me was that throughout the whole book the author managed to keep my interest the whole time, from the very beginning starting to know about Hassan up until the end finding out how life changed in Afghanistan and what happened to Hassan's son Sohrab. It also contains a surprise factor where in some situations I never expected things to happen that way, this is one thing that makes a book so appealing for me, when the things that happen aren't so predictable. I could read this book all over again and I would enjoy it just as much as the first time.

Lost Boy Lost Girl

A very intriguing story which starts when a woman commits suicide and nobody really knows the reason. At first you get the impression that she was unhappy with her life and her husband didn't do much to help that, but in fact the book goes much deeper than that when her son, Mark, discovers a mysterious house. What he manages to discover in the house reveals a secret that few know and are willing to talk about. His adventure started with a mission, to find the reason behind his mother's death, which he believed had something to do with the house on 3323, Michigan Avenue. The story is told from Tim Underhill's perspective, Mark's uncle, which is a writer and is determined to find out what happened to Mark when he goes missing. Everyone thinks that mark has been yet another victim of the Sherman Park killer, but Tim knows better. This book is full of suspense and I think Straub did a great job at keeping the reader hooked. This was the first book I read by Peter Straub and I will be definitely looking for more books by him. I used to think that Stephen King was the best author for Horror Novels, but Straub certainly matches his abilities, if not outdo him. I liked his style and it was hard putting this one down. The ending was very unexpected, and although some might have been disappointed by it, I enjoyed it and thought it was like a twist to the "and they lived happily ever after" ending. I am very curious to read the books jointly written by Peter Straub and Stephen King and see what they managed to cook up, should be interesting.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

This book revolves around a nine year old girl called Trisha Mcfarland. During a hike with her mother and brother, she decides to stop and take a bathroom leak while her mother and brother are arguing, mainly about their parents' divorce, which Trisha is very fed up of hearing about. When she starts walking again she gets off the trail and is lost in the woods. The rest of the book describes Trisha's survival in the woods, eating checkerberries and nuts and drinking water from the stream while knowing that someone, something, the 'subaudible', is keeping an eye on her and waiting for her to ripen enough before it feasts on her. Most of the time I found this book to be dragging, and felt like the author was trying too hard to make the situation sound scary and introduce fear and suspense, however for some reason it wasn't working for me. More often than not I thought he took too long trying to describe the gory details and wanted him to move on. Not to mention the continuous references to the game of baseball which I didn't get, but that is because I have no idea about baseball and it only seemed like a minor incovenience. The story picked up again near the end when Trisha finally found a road and at that point it got me hooked. I was a little disappointed with this book, I have read a few of King's books and loved them, but this one just didn't seem like it was from the same author. It's enough to say that this book took me about 6 months to complete, albeit that it has only some 300 pages. The story wasn't gripping enough and that made it hard for me to pick it up and continue reading.

Intro

Hello there. I have just created 'Book Archive' with the aim to document my thoughts on the books that I read. I have read many books but although I remember what the book was about, somewhere down the road I forget the details and what my views were on the book and all I am left with is a vague idea. I have been meaning to do something like this for a while, but didn't quite know how to implement such a thing. I recently started blogging and have been finding it quite fun, so I thought why not create a blog and post my thoughts on the books I read on it?

I don't expect that anyone would be reading this blog, I am mainly doing it for me, but I am actually writing this intro in case someone stumbles across my blog and wonders what is the purpose of such blog.

I will be posting my first book review shortly, I have been waiting to finish a book to start the blog and this is the time. Don't expect that I will be posting a book review every day, not even every week probably. I won't be reading more than usual just to update the blog, but when I finish a book I will be sure to write about it here. On the right hand side you can see which books I am currently reading, and essentially the books that I will be reviewing next !

For more generic stuff you can visit my main blog here. You will won't you? And possibly even leave a comment to make me happy.