|| IF Book Club : The Next Chapter # 2 || - Page 32

I finished reading The Maidens and really enjoyed it much more than The Silent Patient.

Going to start reading A Thousand Splendid Suns either tonight or tomorrow.

How is this month looking for you girls reading wise?

Originally posted by: Anam...

I finished reading The Maidens and really enjoyed it much more than The Silent Patient.

Going to start reading A Thousand Splendid Suns either tonight or tomorrow.

How is this month looking for you girls reading wise?

I am almost halfway through The Maidens and so far the story seems so forced. Its nowhere as thrilling as The Silent Patient which had me hooked throughout.

But a thousand splendid suns is gonna stick with me for a long long time😭

I want to read both the books but I'm not getting any reading time at all. I read a few pages of A Thousand Splendid Suns a couple of days ago and was really liking it but haven't read anything since then.

Just finished a thousand splendid suns, so posting my review before I forget the story/details of it😆

This is mainly the story of Mariam and Laila with tons of other characters making appearances here and there, but I saw it as a coming of age story and journey of these two girls in Afghanistan. It tackled many themes such as women empowerment, terrorism, family relationships, love, forced marriage, domestic abuse, etc. It is a very inspiring story, especially for women. I would recommend everyone should read this at least once in their life. It's a story that stays with you for a long, long time.

Even though this is not my usual genre, and it would have probably stayed on my to be read list forever if this whole Afghanistan situation hadn't arised in the real world currently, but I am so glad that I decided to read this book.

It is one of those stories that touched my heart and made me cry with the characters. It felt so real and relatable as if I knew these characters personally. I loved both Maiam and Laila, but for some reason I connected more to Mariam.

I will definitely try out more books by Khaled Hosseini due to my love for this book, even though they don't fit into my genre preference.

Rating: 4

I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns today. I'd give it 3.5 to 4 stars.

I enjoyed reading the story. Housseini's stories have the ability to bind readers to the characters from the very beginning. I felt it while reading The Kite Runner and now while reading A Thousand Splendid Suns.

This story was way more depressing than Kite Runner. In that one, there were more happy moments than there were painful ones, and the Afghan war felt like something that was happening somewhere else and affecting someone not mentioned in the story (at least during most of the book) but in this book, it affected the main characters more directly and brought it to the forefront. Even if I felt that the centre of the story was not war but friendship, love and courage that these characters showed in the entire story. It was heart touching.

On the other hand, there were a few things that I didn't much care about. Just like in The Kite Runner, in this book too, I felt it totally unnecessary to include words in regional language. I understand using such words when there isn't an English word that can properly express the sentiment, or if only a couple of words from the local language is used to give readers a feeling of being there, but Housseini uses too many of them and I hate having to stop reading and go Google it. Even when these words are followed by an English translation, it still breaks the flow of reading. I have to read the English translation and go back to read again to get the proper meaning. In all, as I said before, it feels forced and unnecessary.

That being said, the overall story is very good and I'd recommend everyone to at least give it a try.

Ugly Love review (soorry its all over the place😆)

Miles and Tate. Two individuals who have had troubled pasts, therefore when they feel an instant attraction to each other, their past holds them back from falling in love. They still end up falling in love and the love becomes ugly for them.

The title describes the story perfectly. If I only had two words to sum up the story, it would definitely be ugly love. I loved how the chapters alternated their point of views, and we even got a chapter with Rachel's point of view. The twist was unexpected.

Usually my favourite characters are one of the main characters, but this time Cap was the hero of the story as he was always their guru and the one to bring the couple together. He helped Miles get closure from his past and move on with Tate.

Tate was always treated like trash by Miles, I understand that Miles had a very disturbing past, but that didn't give him the right to hurt other people. He never tried to move on and kept using Tate instead for his own selfish purposes. At some parts it felt like Tate had no self respect because she kept going back to him only to be hurt all over again. I am glad he realised his mistake at the end though and they both managed to get their happily ever after. Even though it was only because Rachel had moved on and was happy--I feel like he would've never apologised to Tate or accepted her in his life if Rachel hadn't moved on, and that I feel is unfair to Tate.

The first half was really slow and repetitive, I almost gave up reading this. It was so different to other writing by Hoover and I was disappointed. But luckily it picked up during the second half. I have also noticed another pattern in Hoover's writing, that the leads always have a troubled past which is shown to us through flashbacks.

4 stars

The Maidens

The second novel of Alex Michaelides is another murder mystery of whodunnit. It mainly revolves around the characters of Mariana and Zoe. who suspect Edward Fosca--a professor--for killing innocent students from his university. But is he really the killer or is there more to it?

I find many similarities between this book and Alex's debut novel, The Silent Patient, which was also a murder mystery with a therapist as the main character and the whole story told through their eyes. The concept was very similar too and some characters from The Silent Patient were also mentioned if you pay close attention. The setting is the same.

I really enjoyed the plot twist at the end of the novel because it was totally unexpected. The rest of the story I did not enjoy so much. It dragged a lot and it looked forced like the writer was forcing the reader to suspect all the characters but was not convincing enough. I could not get hooked to this book the same way I did with The Silent Patient.

Even though The Silent Patient is one of my favourite novels, I felt introducing the same characters and setting here was not necessary because there's no connection with that story here. Even the plot is very similar even though the twist is different and catches you by surprise, but I do wish Alex Michaelides comes up with a new and unique plot for his next novel.

I am giving this 4 stars just because of the twist at the end!

I'm reading this book right now and your review is very encouraging. Thanks!😊

Originally posted by: 23Diya

I'm reading this book right now and your review is very encouraging. Thanks!😊

You shouldnt have read my review before finishing the book😭

Originally posted by: evilxbalaa

You shouldnt have read my review before finishing the book😭

That's fine. It was spoiler-free, so the only thing your review did was make me more excited about reading a book I was already keen on reading.😃