21. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Yesterday I read a New York Times editorial in which a middle school teacher, Claire Needel Hollander, discussed summer reading. She said how she usually told parents that "Any reading is good reading" but that this wasn't true. Sh e argued that while the poorest readers could gain skills from anything, more advanced readers didn't have that much to gain from The Hunger Games: 

"While “The Hunger Games” may entrance readers, what does a 13-year-old gain in verbal and world knowledge from the series? A student may encounter a handful of unfamiliar words, while contemplating human dynamics that are cartoonish, with violent revolution serving as the backdrop for teen romance."

And well, I just have to disagree. I mean, she's correct with regards to the vocabulary, but the plot? Pshh. I'm still thinking about it months later. Anyway there's this one line that seems particularly relevant. Before Katniss and Peeta enter the arena, he says to her that night:

"I just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them that they don't own me. If I'm gonna die, I wanna still be me."

Isn't that the quintessential human struggle, especially under the pressures of totalitarianism and tyranny? It's what Winston and Julia struggled for in Nineteen Eighty-Four, it's was the reason why the book club was started in Reading Lolita in Tehran, it's what Lenny and Eunice try for in a destroyed American in Super Sad True Love Story. And, it's what gives Laila and Mariam (and other characters) strength in A Thousand Splendid Suns in the face of the tyrants they encounter — the Soviets, the Mujahideen, the Taliban, their husbands.

Each woman clings to herself and each other in order to survive, in order to retain their humanity and dignity in the midst of a society that wants to make them literally inconsequential.

I bought this book two years ago, and I know I started it at least once before, but it never stuck. I guess I didn't like it. That amazes me in retrospect because I loved this book. I'm in awe of it — its beautiful words and characters, its tragic wonder.

But I hate the cover.