And the Mountains Echoed

Review originally featured on Quiet or Loud? The Mind of a Young Lady: https://bookreadersthoughts.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/and-the-mountains-echoed-by-khaled-hosseini/

This is the first book I have read by Khaled Hosseini. I have heard that his book The Kite Runner is a very good book. In And the Mountains Echoed, every chapter is narrated by a different person, and each is a first-person narration. The time period is this book span over many years with the book sometimes going back in time (usually some years before the chapter that preceded it). This book also took place in many different locations, such as Paris in France, Kabul in Afghanistan, California in the United States and Tinos in Greece. I liked the theme of family that was presented in this book. When this book starts a father is telling a story of a father losing his favorite child to his children on the way to do a job. A story in which well eventually become true to them in a different way from the family in their father's story. The father has his two children with him, Abdullah and Pari, even though Abdullah was supposed to stay at home. The father ends up selling Pari to a wealthy family by the name of Wahdati, which breaks Abdullah's heart because he has lost his sister.

Why did the father sell Pari? How does this affect Abdullah's family ? Will Abdullah ever see Pari again? How will Pari's presence affect Nila and Suleiman Wahdati? And are they prepared for parenthood?

When it came to reading this book I was very hooked for the first 4 chapters. After those chapters, the book really dragged for me. I started this book as part of a group read in January, but I didn't finish it with the rest of the group. I ended up finishing this book in March. The ending was pretty amazing, so I guess he saved the best stories for last. There were a lot of things I didn't understand. It seemed like every character's story had a sad part to it and it made me a little insensitive to some characters because I was expecting a sad story. However, I did like that every chapter was from a different point of view. It made some stories that involved more than one character a little more understanding, and makes you able to understand why some of the things happened the way they did.

I would probably read more books by this author because when I looked at reviews for this book, many people said his other books are way better than this one. Therefore, I still have some faith in Khaled Hosseini. Also, this book wasn't that bad of a read to make me not read anything else by him.

I would probably encourage others to read this book, but those people would have to be people that have already read a book by Khaled Hosseini. I wouldn't want this book to be the book they based their decision of him as an author on. It is a good book, but I wouldn't to highly recommend a book that I sat aside for about 2 months before actually finishing it.

I was on the edge between giving this 3 or 4 stars.