The Secret Sky: A Novel Of Forbidden Love In Afghanistan by Atia Abawi

 My Rating: 4.5

Fatima is a Hazara girl, raised to be obedient and dutiful. Samiullah is a Pashtun boy raised to defend the traditions of his tribe. They were not meant to fall in love. But they do. And the story that follows shows both the beauty and the violence in current-day Afghanistan as Fatima and Samiullah fight their families, their cultures and the Taliban to stay together. 

This book is based on the people the author met and the events she covered during her nearly five years in Afghanistan. I thought that she did an excellent job of making the reader reaize the conditions in Afghanistan today. Definitely worth a read.

When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi

My rating: 3.0

After a woman's husband is murdered in Kabul, she is forced to take her 3 children and flee the country.  While this was a well written book that captured the plight of refugees / immigrants, I didn't feel connected to any of the characters.

I felt the story was worthwhile but could have been much shorter.The first half of the book told in the mother's voice, worked better for me than the second half where the narrative switched between the mother and the son. Maybe it was my lack of connection to the characters that made this feel very long and drawn out.

Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji

Pasha Shahed is a typical teenage boy who likes hanging out with his friends on the rooftop terrace of his house in Iran, dreaming about life, love, and what the future holds. What makes this 17-year-old different is that he is living under the harsh reign of the Shah in Iran during the summer of 1973. With his biggest worry being his feelings for Zari, the girl next door who has been promised to another since birth, Pasha has a rude awakening. Told in Pasha’s unique voice and partially in flashback, Seraji’s wonderful coming-of-age story is at times funny and sweet as well as thought-provoking and heart-wrenching.  Initially, this book wais evoking memories of The Kite Runner but it definitely did not measure up to that book.  It was a 'cute' book but definitely not the same caliber as a great book.

Rating: 3.3 Just Ok

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.  This is a close second to his first novel, The Kite Runner.

Rating: 4.8 Definite recommend!

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.")

Rating: 5 Definite Recommend!