After having this on my TBR since I read The Kite Runner, I was expecting to cry because I sobbed with The Kite Runner. This one just made me sad but very very angry. I was angry for the girls and I got angry at them.
We at first follow Miriam while she is a young girl. She is living in a kolba with her mother who used to be a servant to a wealthy man. He got her pregnant and his three wives made him kick her out and fire her. He ended up building the kolba with two of his sons and taking care of Miriam and her mother. Her mother was bitter, but she was quiet whenever he visited. Her mother always blamed Miriam for her downfall and Miriam wanted to be with her father. Her mother told her that if she left, she would die. Miriam goes to her father's home, and she is shunned by the wives. She sleeps outside his house that night and his chauffeur takes her back home to the kolba, but then has to be taken back becuase her mother had hung herself from a tree.
Miriam is distraught and angry with her father. She is in the house for a couple of weeks and then the wives arrange a marriage for her to a shoe store owner in Kabul. Her father goes through with it and when she is getting on the bus, she sees that he is against it and upset at losing a daughter.
Miriam and her husband Rasheed make it to Kabul in three days and Rasheed takes his time with letting her get adjusted and to calm down. He eventually wants a son again, so he does what husbands require. She eventually gets pregnant and one day in a bath house, she has a miscarriage. That hit hard for me, but then when we get to the bridge between her and Laila's chapters, we learn that Miriam has had seven miscarriages.
Laila is a neighbor who lives on the same road. Her mother was friendlt with Miriam when she first came, but then Rasheed enforced rules that she speak to no one, especially Laila's family because Laila's father is a university professor. Laila is born on the night the revolution begins. Laila has a close friend named Tariq who has one leg. The whole neighborhood call them cute when they are young and believe that they will be married.
Raids and missles start dropping. Laila's two older brothers have been killed while fighting and Laila's mother is distraught. The taliban take over and impose all the rules and requirements for men and women. Laila's father is wanting to leave Kabul and get to safety and it takes some persuasion, but they are packing to leave and their house gets blown up. Laila survives and she is pulled to safety by Rasheed. Tariq and his family have already fled. Laila finds out that the truck he was on was blown up and a guy that was supposedly in the hospital with him told him all about her before he died.
Rasheed proposes marriage to Laila to help keep her safe since her family is dead, and she immediately agrees because she has a secret. She is carrying Tariq's baby. Miriam is angry and she hates that Laila is stealing her husband. This pissed me off because Rasheed is beating Miriam and being hateful towards her, and Miriam is being jealous.
There were things that these two did that made me anxious and just shake my head because they could not be this damn dumb. I am surprised that Rasheed wasn't killed earlier and Miriam could have totally gotten away with killing him.
No comments:
Post a Comment