Wednesday, April 09, 2014

book nook: and the mountains echoed

And The Mountains Echoed
Khaled Housseini

Since I really enjoyed reading Housseini's other two books (The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns), I was excited when I found this one sitting on a library shelf all ready for me to borrow and read. Unfortunately, unlike his other two books, this one was a disappointment. A "Whoomp, whoomp" if you will.

The book is about multi-generational family bonds and begins centred around a brother, sister, and father. The first couple of chapters are actually quite charming and Housseini's descriptions create rich scenes while his knack for story-telling draws you into the pages.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, after the first few chapters it all went downhill from there with the introduction of too many plot lines and characters. Sure everything converged towards the end (kind of like Love Actually), but by then the story was so convoluted that I couldn't keep track of what was going on nor did I really care that I didn't know what was going on at that point (kind of like Love Actually, heh). The fact that I literally skipped some pages here and there because I found portions of the book too slow/drawn out probably didn't help but hey, I was bored. Never a good sign. While the ending did make me teary, even the ending couldn't redeem the book as a whole for me.

Would I recommend his other books? Yes. Would I recommend this one? No.

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