Best Books by Khaled Hosseini You Must Read

 

Since childhood, we have been told:

Reading relaxes the mind and increases creativity.

And that’s true. The only thing to make sure of is choosing good content; otherwise, bad literature is a nightmare. Today, I would like to discuss two well-known books by a very famous writer: Khaled Hosseini.

An Afghan-American novelist is majorly famous for his masterpiece, Kite Runner.

He mostly writes about the stories of Afghanistan and how people live there. I have read two of his books:

Kite Runner

A masterpiece written in the early 2000s tells us the story of the friendship between two kids, but with very different financial statuses.

Amir, the son of a wealthy person, had a special bond with his servant’s boy, Hassan.

The book is written in a flashback style and mainly focuses on Amir and the guilt he’s been living with throughout his life. The writer successfully managed to highlight some critical and bold topics that greatly affected society and the people living in it.

Those who haven’t read this book must be aware of this line:

For you, a thousand times over.

It was a very famous line from The Kite Runner, but it is more beautifully presented in the book.

Khalid Hosseini highlighted the following issues in this book:

• Sexual abuse with children,
• Cultural and Financial Injustice,
• Guilt,
• fear—and more.

There are many things told in this book, but for me, it was a story of guilt.

I felt pity for Hassan and many other children like him who are still getting harassed by the rich community. Unfortunately, we are all part of this system and don’t try to stop it out of fear of losing our status.

That’s what happened to Amir.

There are so many like him who see this with their eyes but don’t do anything about it.

The ending of the book was heart-touching for me. It didn’t have a complete or happy ending, but it seemed quite realistic to me.

Now, coming to:

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Another great piece written by Khaled Hosseini highlighted important issues that are still present in our society. The book mainly revolved around the story of Marium and the things she had gone through since a very young age.

She was described in the book as "Harami

(the child born via fornication)

The following are the things that were presented in this book:

• Early child marriage
• Marital Rape
• Slavery
• injustice, and more.

It was basically the story of women and the things they have to go through because of societal pressure.

Marium was an innocent kid, but just because she was the daughter of a maid and his father didn’t want to accept her, she was forced to marry a very old man (Rasheed). His husband was a conservative person who abused her sexually, physically, and mentally in the best possible ways.

The other lead character of this book was introduced in the second half: Laila (Rasheed’s second victim).

There was a time when Marium treated Laila as her enemy. But later things changed, and they shared a special bond and always protected each other.

That part of the book was very cute and heartbreaking at the same time.

They both have suffered a lot to get freedom from the toxic environment, which no one deserves at all.

There are a lot of famous quotes in A Thousand Splendid Suns; however, my favourite one is:

"Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting."

This is a line very close to our hearts.

A great story of two young Afghan women who just wanted to breathe and live freely like normal people rather than being slaves to others.

Overall Analysis of Both Books

Both of the above-mentioned books are very good at presenting the real-life issues of many innocent people. Khaled Hosseini beautifully explains the living conditions and issues that Afghan people faced and are still facing.

Even though Kite Runner is more famous and even had a film version,  for me, A Thousand Splendid Suns is an even more emotional story.

However, both books are very close to reality.

Must-read books!