a thousand incongruous suns

I’m reading A Thousand Splendid Suns right now, by Khaled Hosseini. I feel like not reading it anymore.

My problem with it is that it’s highly disconnected with reality, and the main theme of the book seems to be that men are horrible assholes. What a thing to want to demonstrate. Sometimes humans do shitty things to one another. Reading this book is like living in a world where everyone is negative all the time. It makes me feel disquieted and upset and irritable.

The book first lost me when a girl of fifteen started standing up for herself emotionally to all the evil men in her life that were screwing her over, displaying strength of character that not even adults usually have. There is just no way.

I know I’m supposed to suspend my disbelief and just go along with the story in order to get the author’s meaning, like a parable, but these leaps of faith are of a size that ruins the Afghani perspective I was trying to get out of this book for me.

Oh well, Khaled Hosseini.