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I read the first part of the book 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khalid Hosseini. This book is divided into four parts; the first part following the life of Mariam, the second part introduces Laila, the third part switching between both of them, and then the last part revolving around Laila. The story follows the turbulent lives of two women, Mariam and Laila during the war in Afghanistan, and when the Taliban took over.
The story starts with the tale of Mariam, how she was an unwanted child right from when she was born. Her mother, Nana, and She lived in a 'kolba' outside the city. She did not live with her father, Jalil, as she was his illegitimate daughter, but he did visit her every Thursday. For her fifteenth birthday, she asked him to take her to the cinema he owned which was showing the film 'Pinocchio'. When he did not arrive on her birthday, she walked all the way to his house in the city, and she was told he was out, resorting her to sleeping on the porch. The next day, she was told to leave by the guard as Jalil had supposedly ordered, but it turned out that he was in the house the whole time as she saw him through the window. Disheartened, she went back home to find her mother had hung herself because she thought Mariam had betrayed her. She now had to live with her father for a few days, but she did not interact with his three wives or several children and locked herself in the room, and the guilt causing her to cry all day. Soon, a proposal arrived from a shoemaker, Rasheed, who was 30 years senior to her, and lived in Kabul. She was married and sent off. It turned out later that Mariam was sterile, and Rasheed's abuse grew. He forced her to wear a burqa, and Mariam's 'new' life was not turning out as she expected. In fact, it was the complete opposite of the happy life she thought awaited her. This can be judged by just one of the many examples of Rasheed's abuse. He constantly criticized Mariam's cooking and took it too far when he brought rocks from outside and asked her to chew on them, breaking her teeth. He stated that chewing on rocks was better than feeding on what she cooked him.
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