WIJFR - And the Mountains Echoed (sp)

Adjudi-Kate · June 2014

I just read And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. This was my first book by this author, though I have wanted to read something of his for a long time. My reaction? I don't think I entirely know how I feel about it yet. It was interesting how all the characters were somehow related to one another. Can a book be "real" to a fault? I guess for me, it can. I cared about the characters and that's why I was so disappointed that no one had a satisfying ending. Nice people didn't catch a break and bad people didn't get their comeuppance. Everyone was held back by loss, fear, or selfishness. Do people have happy endings in real life? Yes, sometimes they do. But not in this book. There were only half-happinesses. Or fake happinesses. Or too-late happinesses.

For example, Abdullah misses his sister all his life. He knew she was adopted by Nila Rafferty - or it wouldn't have been hard to figure out with one call to his uncle. Nila was famous. Once the internet was created, or even before, he would have been able to find out where Peri was living in Paris and could have contacted his sister. He didn't even TRY. That's lame.

I did enjoy the descriptions of life in Afganistan. The characters were all multi-faceted and interesting. There's no doubt that Hosseini is a talented storyteller. The book challenged me to accept "not so neat" endings. So, I respected this book, but I didn't exactly like it.

ThisModernLove · June 2014

I actually didn't like this book at all. I felt like I didn't care about the characters. I didn't mind the ending but I wanted to actually care about someone and I just didn't.

Adjudi-Kate · June 2014

Do you think your apathy towards the characters was because the book focused so much on their faults and failings?

ThisModernLove · June 2014

@Adjudi-Kate I don't think that's the case. I really enjoy books where the characters have large faults and fail. I think it was that I couldn't make a connection to any of them. This may be partially because of the format of the book. The characters I wanted to spend more time with before it jumped to the next, I never got that time. I did like reading about Nila. I almost wish it was just about her.

Adjudi-Kate · June 2014

Yeah, I get that. It took me awhile to get into each story and by the time started to care about a couple of them, he moved on to the next one. The only one who had a full story was Peri and the middle of her story (getting married, having kids) was not all that interesting to me.

shellmh · June 2014

I definitely suggest you read his other two books. They didn't have the broken apart feel that this one did. Having read his other two first, I did enjoy this one, but I looked at it more as short stories that all happened to have something to do with the previous one.

WIJFR - And the Mountains Echoed (sp)

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