Waterstones Synopsis:

Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.

I did not enjoy The Kite Runner so was apprehensive when I started this book. I didn’t need to be – I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is harrowing and disturbing and completely readable. Hosseini writes a good, moving story. With terrorism such a real issue in the 21st century I felt he is brave writing this book as it features not only the Soviets, but the Taliban and 9/11. This could be seen as a controversial thing to do, but I felt Hosseini dealt with these horrors in a commendable way.

Hosseini writes some great characters. I felt something towards all of them. I felt for Mariam and what she faced in Herat before moving to Kabul, and my heart broke with Laila’s many times. And I did not like Rasheed – what a horrid man. I wanted him to be punished; he really sparked some anger in me – which I think is a sign of a good character and a well written book.

This book does contain a whole host of horrors, but not really ones I was expecting. War is prominent throughout the majority of the book, but it is not all Taliban based. The first half of the book sees the Soviets in Afghanistan. The horrors faced by the women mainly occurred at home at the hands of Rasheed as well. I felt that the blurb was a bit misleading in this respect. It is a bit of a disturbing read, but I found myself wanting to know what happened, and actually it didn’t take me long to read. I don’t think this book is for the weak hearted, but it is definitely up there with my other high-rated books. I think this story will stay with me for a long time.

9/10

Amazon description:

When Doug Parker married Hailey – beautiful, smart and ten years older – he left his carefree Manhattan life behind to live with her and her teenage son, Russ, in the suburbs. Three years later, Hailey has been dead for a year, and Doug, a widower at 29, just wants to drown himself in self-pity and Jack Daniels. But his family has other ideas… Russ is furious with Doug for not adopting him after Hailey died, and has fallen in with a bad crowd. Claire, Doug’s irrepressible and pregnant twin sister, has just left her husband and moved in, uninvited, determined to turn his life around. Then there’s Debbie, their younger sister, engaged to Doug’s ex-best friend and maniacally determined to pull of the perfect wedding at any cost. Soon, Doug finds himself trying to forge a relationship with Russ, reconnecting with his own eccentric nuclear family, and reluctantly dipping his toes into the shark-infested waters of the second-time-around dating scene. It isn’t long before his new life is spinning hopelessly out of control…

What an interesting concept for a book – focusing on the man after his wife has died, instead of the protagonist being a woman. For that reason, I wouldn’t call this chick-literature. The book focuses on Doug, whose wife was killed in a plane crash a year ago. The book explores how long one can “acceptably” grieve for and the repercussions of death and moving on.

Considering the series nature of this book, there were entertaining parts and there were characters I liked. I did chuckle, and I did feel empathy. I liked Claire, Doug’s twin sister. She was so blunt and straight forward she made for entertaining reading.

My complaint with the book is simple: there was way too much bad language and more sex than was necessary. Normally I put books like that down, however I finished this book because regardless of these things, the story was good and I wanted to know how things would end. I think what made this book stand out was that it was written by a man, about a man’s grief when his wife dies. Despite the sex and language, this was an easy book to read, a good storyline to follow and it only took me a day to read it.

7/10