And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
S P O I L E R A L E R T !
I found “And the Mountains Echoed” moving. Strong themes of history, memory, and family ring throughout and it was beautiful to read. Although not as good as its predecessors, it still weaved an intrinsic tale that captured me immediately.
The fairytale that is told to Abdullah and Pari at the beginning was heart-breaking, but also a fantastic mirror of the central plot of the book. If it wasn’t used to parallel the tragedy of separation of the siblings it could have been a great book on its own.
I also particularly loved a quote that can be found on pages 118-119. It spoke to me about fate and I found it really stuck with me after reading it.
However I did find some faults that, unfortunately, prevented it from earning five stars from me.
To start, the moment when Pari is taken away was completely botched. It wasn’t written explicitly, it was implied and it really didn’t pack as hard of a punch as the trials and tribulations his characters from his other novels experienced. The transition wasn’t there and I had to go back a few pages to make sure I wasn’t crazy for missing it. It didn’t do much for my heart-strings personally.
Due to the different stories all connecting by specific characters, the chapters contained an overload of content that spanned decades and I discovered that I had to put it down for a couple of hours to let the previous story sink in before starting the next. I would recommend other readers do the same.
It was a very similar experience to reading “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, where Charlie’s diary entries covered a lot of time.
The ending though…It broke me. I have personal experiences of loved ones losing memories and nursing homes and it reminded me of those hard times. It definitely is a bittersweet ending, not at all like Disney’s “Coco”.
So if you’re looking for something bright and meaningful to make that gut-wrenching reveal less painful: good luck!
Overall I found the book enjoyable and clever. Some stories grabbed me more than others, such as Pari Senior’s, Pari Junior’s, Nabi’s, Parwana’s and Idris’.
It definitely had its own identity and I would definitely recommend it to others who love Hosseini’s work.
So is this one of your favourite Hosseini novels? Did it stack up to his other works? Did you enjoy the structure of the narrative? Whatever your thoughts, put them down below!
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