Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

 

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. 

Review: The Fairer Sex Collection 7-8 by Michelle Miller

 The final two short stories in the Fairer Sex collection. 

I ended up really liking this one because the sex scene was hot. That was the only thing I liked about it actually. The rest was just a blur and it went in one ear and out the other. The characters are at a fancy dinner and Eleanor is just listening to the conversations of her dinner mates and they are about feminism and that sort of thing. I was so bored that I didn't pay attention. 

Eleanor is kind of in her own little world because her husband has mentioned that he wants to have an open marriage because she is starting to be boring, but he doesn't want a divorce. The woman he wants to sleep with is kind of stupid and she is also at the dinner table. The chef comes to the table and he is named Maz. He is very hot with tattoos. He is confident when he speaks and it sets Eleanor's husband hackles up because he doesn't want someone smarter than him or showin him up in any way.

Eleanor goes to the restroom and she is having a meltdown when the chef comes to the restroom. He asks her how she is feeling and if she has any dietary restrictions. He then takes her to the kitchen, and that is where we get the sex scene. He tells her what he is preparing and all of a sudden she takes her panties off and starts fucking herself with a carrot. When she comes, she bites the carrot. The chef then fucks her and when he is about to come, she grabs a cup for him and then when he is finished, she pours it into the soup. The ultimate fuck you.

That night, her and her husband have the best sex of their marriage and he no longer wants an open relationship and she tells him that he just had his threesome. I was squealing. I wanted this to be a full blown story. 

This is the last short story in this collection and it was the worst. It read like a teenage fan fiction where the author writes herself meeting her favorite celebrity and having a relationship or getting hit on. 

This story follows Keridee, an 18 year old high school graudate who is ready to leave small town Florida. She has a crap job and an even crappier boyfriend who is controlling and a cheater. She is so full of herself and thinks the reason everyone hates her is because she is prettier. 

She is working the makeup counter one day and a guy offers her a modeling job. It is for a famous race car driver named Brad Tucker. She has no idea what to do and it irritates the other models. She hands Brad his helmet and he is immediately interested. When he wins the race, Keridee is on the podium to present him his trophy. When he is getting out of the car, he is being swarmed by girls and she gets jealous.

Keridee presents him the trophy and he grabs her crotch in plain view. That is the end of the story. I hated this story with a passion and it was not a good inclusion to this collection at all. 

Review: Demon Slayer volume 1 by Koyoharu Gotouge

 

I am doing a little themed reading TBR for myself this month, Manga March. I am starting anothe couple series and will be continuing some series. My kids picked out the series they want to read with me, and this is the first one I am picking up because it has become overdue at my library.

I knew nothing going into this book because it has been so long since I have heard anyone talk about it. 

We follow a boy named Tanjiro. He is with his family and he is going to make a trek down the mountain to the village to sell charcoal. When he gets done, it is late and he is about the head back up the mountain. He is stopped and told it is too dangerous because of demons. He is told that demons can go into houses and feed at night. 

The next day he goes back home to find his family slaughtered and his sister Nezuko turning into a demon. She runs at him and he is saved by a demon slayer. The demon slayer tries to kill Nezuko, but Tanjiro pleads for him not too. The demon slayer whose name is Giyu tells him that he is weak and pathethic. He also tells Tanjiro to keep her out of the sunlight and to go visit an old man at the foot of the mountain. 

Tanjiro is traveling and he asks people where the old man is and gets a basket so that Nezuko can ride in it while in sunlight. They find a cave and Nezuko dug a hole to hide in and they come across another demon that it eating people. The demon realizes that Nezuko is a demon and Tanjiro is a human. The demon goes to attack and Tanjiro chops off his head. The head starts talking and he grows arms. They start fighting again and Tanjiro goes to kill it with a dagger and is stopped by a weird looking dude with a long nose. 

The start of the third chapter is of the old man who is wearing a mask which is the long nose. He recieves a message from Giyu asking him to train Tanjiro because he senses a difference in them and also because Tanjiro has a strong sense of smell like the old man whose name is Sakonji Urokodaki. He watches as Tanjiro is hesitating on killing the demon and the sunlight ends up blasting him. 

Sakonji asks Tanjiro what he would do if his sister eats a human and he thinks too slowly and it pisses Sankoji off. He tells him that he must kill his sister and then kill himself because a demon must never take the life of an innocent person. 

Sakonji tests Tanjiro and tells him that he has to descend the mountain and make it back to the house himself. Tanjiro starts setting off traps that have been laid. He uses his sense of smell to locate the traps. He makes it back to the house and Sakonji accepts him as his student.

Tanjiro trains everyday by running down the mountain and avoiding traps. He learns about the katana and practices with it. Nezuko has been asleep for 6 months and during that time, Tanjiro has kept a journal of his days. Sakonji wants Tanjiro to split a boulder in half with his katana and then he will approve hime for final selection for the demon slayer corps. 

Tanjiro is whining that he can't do it because his katana will break and a person wearing a fox masks lands on the boulder and starts calling him a weakling and he attacks. The boy starts telling Tanjiro everything that he needs to do and that he didn't learn anything. He knocks him on his ass and a young girl shows up. She tells him basic philosophy and that they were orphans when Sakonji took them in. 6 more months go by and Sabito with the fox mask sees a change when he brings his real sword to the match with Tanjiro. Tanjiro wins the match and then he sees that he has split the boulder.

Sakonji is surprised that Tanjiro has split the boulder and he admits that he was not going to send him to final selection because he did not want another child to die. While Tanjiro is leaving for Mount Fujikanse, he tells Sakonji to give his best to Sabito and Makomo. Sakonji is shocked at how Tanjiro knew thos two children since they are dead. 

Tanjiro gets to the final selection and he has to survive for a week at the top of the mountain where demons have free roam since the wisteria barrier doesn't grow that high. To be honest, Tanjiro's inner monologue reminds me so much of Deku from My Hero Academia.

The final battle of this volume is against this mega demon who has been trapped in the wisteria prison for 47 years. He tells Tajiro that he has eaten every single one of Sakonji's students and that his last two were a boy and girl in fox warding masks. Tanjiro has a hard time believing that the two students were the ones that trained him and that they were spirits. 

Tanjiro smells the line that shows up when he is fighting and it shows his enemy's weak spot. I also an annoyed with the move names being mentioned because why are they all water moves. It looks like a rip off of the gum gum moves in One Piece.

I really like this volume and found it easy to follow along and keep up with what was happening. 

Review: The Fairer Sex Collection 4-6 by Micheller Miller

 I have read the fourth, fifth and sixth book in the Fairer Sex collection and the fourth one started with a bang. I think that I would give this a low 3.5 star rating.

In this story we follow a girl named Paige. I know the book title says Heidi, but this is written as a screenplay. Paige is the main protagonist as a 20 something college girl in New York. The narrator should be either David Attenborough or Samual L Jackson. Reading that sentence immediately made this book more enjoyable because every time the narrator part came up, I could hear Attenborough or Samual L Jackson in my head.. Most of the time it was Morgan Freeman. 

Paige is basically a gold digger and she is trying to sleep and bag all of these finance men. One of a meathead who fucks her in a bathroom bar and he comes, smacks her ass and leaves the bathroom. One wanted to roleplay as the same person. One had a small penis and he wanted her to say it was an awesome penis. There was a guy who picked her up off the street after she left the role playing guy and he didn't do anything and he told her he had been celibate for 8 years because he only wanted money.

There was one guy who had an app on his watch that notified him that he had an erection and he immediately got on VR to get off because he said that it didn't result in pregnancies, diseases or commitment. 

It just proved that wealthy couples are truly miserable because they think money will solve everything an that it doesn't matter how big your penis is, or if you can fuck good. One guy told her that she was mediocre on top and that her vagina was too stretched out to make him happy and that it wouldn't be a good match for him. He basically called her a hoe.

The true woman of this story is Heidi. She is married to a finance guy named Paul who is nothing like these guys in her screenplay. She tells Paul about her screenplay and that the character based off his job was going to rape and kill Paige because she signed a contract selling her soul. Paul and Heidi ends up having sex after talking and they fall asleep cradling Heidi's pragnant belly.

This is another bomb. It was so boring and plain. This story was about a woman named Clara who is out to eat with her husband who is a finance guy. He is at dinner and he is screaming into his phone and ignoring Clara. He goes out front of the restaurant and continues his call for a long time. Meanwhile Clara is feeling the judgemental stares and she is starting to get tipsy from the wine. She is also spiraling thinking about why her husband has not read her book yet.

He comes back and he asks about the movie that they are going to go see and she tells him that it is a foreign film with subtitles and he groans. They get to the theatre and they go to their seats. Clara locks eyes with the director who is similar in age to her husband. The director email her throughout the movie about her book. He invites her backstage and Claras husband is in the bathroom on his phone. 

Clara meets up with the director and they end up fucking behind the screen. Clara is getting off on the fact that the people in the theatre can't see them fucking. When the movie is finished, her husband shows up and gets pissed that she was not in her seat and he puffs up once he sees that she is with the director. She looks at both of them and sees the same thing and she walks away alone. So dumb.

I have found my least favorite of the collection. If you have a eating disorder.... PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS BOOK OR THIS REVIEW!

 This follows a woman named Lauren and she has just had a big art gallery opening. She is so happy and buzzing, because she did it.. but there is one nagging feeling. A person that she has wanted approval from didn't show up.

She gets back to her home and it feels like there will be a moment between her and the doorman, but there is zero spice in this story. She is getting comfortable and the doorman tells her that there was a gift left for her. He brings it up and the gift is a box of cupcakes from her mother. Her mother is the person that didn't show up. Lauren gets realliy pissed at the cupcakes and her mother because her mom knows about Lauren's eating disorder. 

Lauren throws them against the wall and has a full blown meltdown. She then proceeds to eat every single one and the frosting off the wall and then goes into her kitchen and eats out of her fridge. This is the triggering part. The author goes into detail of Lauren making her self get sick. Lauren compares the feeling of vomiting to the feeling of being choked while being intimate and I did not need to read that. I was so disgusted by this story, that I do not remember how it ended. 1 star!

Review: Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

 

I have been wanting to read this book for the last few years, and I picked it up because of the Goodreads reading challenge bookmark. I started this on the 15th of February and DNF'ed it on page 147 on February 20. I could not get into this book and I was just fed up with the main character. I also hate the writing style but since it is translated, I don't know if it is the author's writing or the translation.

This book won a major award and was pitched as a mystery thriller. There was nothing mysterious or thrilling about the first half of the book. It was mainly about a woman who lives in a isolated area in the winter and she has two neighbors. One dies from choking on a bone and our main character calls him Big Foot. She creates names for things and doesn't use their actuall names. The neighbor who got her when Big Foot was found, she named him Oddball. 

They go into Big Foots house and they proceed to put him into a suit. They also see traps and a animal head on the table. When they leave to wait for the police, Janina takes the animal head home with her and she buries the bones that were with it, but not the head. 

She cares about animals more than people and she is a total Karen when it comes to the smallest rule breaking, even the police are over her constant whining. She also tries to tie every bad thing to astrology and the planets being in line and houses are the reasons why major historical events happend. 

She also thinks that the deaths are occuring because the animals are behind it. This gave me major animal farm vibes and it just gave me the ick even more. There was also a part where she sees a woman who is pregnant and there is a thought about miscarriage, which pissed me off. 

I just do not see the point in this story and what the hype is.

Review: The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

 

Was not interested in this series, but I am wanting to complete all of the Goodreads challenges this year and I also want to go see the movie. I have read two Freida McFadden books before and find myself thinking about 1 of them every once in a while, and that one is The Crash. I hope that one gets adapted one day.

But, this is the first book in the Housemaid series. We follow a girl named Millie who is interviewing to be a maid for The Winchesters, who is a wealthy family. Millie is recently unemployed and living in her car. We learn that she is an ex con and that she has been estranged from her family for the duration of her incarceration. We learn later why she got arrested. She also meets the young daughter and compares her to a robot.

It is a couple of days later and she gets the job after thinking that her background check has failed her. She goes back to the gorgeous house and meets the landscaper who speaks only Italian and gives her a shake of the head and says one word, which eventually translates to danger.

Millie walks into the house and she sees that it is filthy and a complete pigsty. Millie is appaled that the house could get so bad in just a few days. Millie immediately gets to work and cleans the house from top to bottom. She is shown her room which is a little attic space with a cot. She is grateful but realizes that the lock to the door is on the outside and there are gouges in the wood.

The next day, Millie wakes up to see the kitchen a complete disaster and Nina chucking everything around looking for her PTA notes that she left on the table. She blames Millie for throwing them away and this is the start of the whiplash that is Nina. She is bi polar and you don't know who you will get.

People around town know that Nina has a past where she was institutionalized and has a mental disorder. Millie and Nina's husband Andrew grow close. Nina takes her daughter to summer camp and Millie and Andre have a night out on the town in Manhattan. 

Andrew is so fed up with Nina, that he kicks her out. I laughed so hard at the next part because Millie offers to help Nina pack her stuff. Nina of course gets pissed and when she is done, she is struggling with the bags and to open the door and Millie runs to open it. 

After a few days of Millie being the homewrecker, shit goes down and we really learn what is going on and who the real enemy is. I had my suspicions from the mid point, but I was annoyed with the characters. I was questioning whether the next books follow the same characters and questions get answered in the epilogue.

Review: The Fairer Sex Collection 1-3 by Michelle Miller

 I started a new collection on Kindle and it is a bunch of short stories. I am going to be reading these while I am at library events with me daughters. It is Tuesday, the 10th and I read three today while sitting in my truck. These are so unrealistic and mood changing. I will be reviewing the three I read today in one post and then repeat with the rest.

The first is about a woman named Candace who is on a first date with a guy named Patrick. This is the third attempt at a first date between these two because he has had to reschedule twice. The story immediately starts off with talking about how Pinky and the Brain was the superior duo in the Animaniacs show because they got their own spinoff. 

They hit it off and Patrick invites her to leave with him and head to one of their places. He asks for the check and she is fantasizing about his fingers and hands and his mouth when suddenly, he asks her to split the check. He claims that it is because of all the equality that women want and if women want equal everything, then they should split the bills.

The thing that confused the hell out of me is that she pulls out an itemized list of everything a woman does and has to have and has yearly costs for each for male and female. It makes Patrick pay the full bill and they leave together. I was so confused and was second guessing myself about continuing the series and this was only the first one. 

I was seriously considering not reading this but then thought, why the fuck not. This was so mind blowing and a what the fuck did I just read. We follow Meredith who is going to Whole Foods after work because she has been craving a certain item all day. I have never been to Whole Foods and I will never go because I am traumatized to step into a bulk food section now.

She is waiting in the long ass lines and this dude behind her starts chatting her up and he is eating the food he is going to purchase. He tells her to go ahead because she is going to buy it anyway. She ends up eating it all and wanting more. She doesn't want to lose her place in line and the guy named Patrick, which made me think that the stories would be connected by the same guy, but they are not.

She refuses to leave the line and Patrick pulls out his phone and gets on Tinder. Meredith gets frustrated and goes back to the bulk food aisle and gets more of her choconola whatever. Patrick shows up behind her and he swipes on her Tinder profile. 

Next thing we know, they are full blown making out and getting naked. He pulls her tit out right in the aisle, What makes it even more awkward and hard to believe is that there are still customers around them shopping and pulling things off the shelf and grabbing food from the bulk food bins.

Why would you get food from where to people are fucking????? 

I went straight into the third story and I think I should have waited because I was still reeling and thinking about the Meredith story. I ended up giving this story a 2 star because Alicia just pissed me off. She works at a bank and she has wealthy clients. She is an aspiring artist and the guy in this story knows. He offers her a chance to sleep with him for a million dollars. He wants her to take the money so she can quit the job and focus on her art.

She refuses at first, and then she accepts. She is so against the whole thing and is doubting and overthinking the whole thing while walking to the hotel room. She patiently waits and then waits all night for him to show up. She gets piss drunk from the mini bar and then she leaves. The next morning, she goes to work and there is an email from the man with the bill from the hotel. He has sent her the bill for the mini bar charge and he has taken it out of the 1 million dollars he has already put into a Cayman account for her. 

I just did not see the purpose of this because what kind of man would just give a million dollars away and not show up to what he proposed. I also didn't like Alicia and what she planned to do with the money. She was going to take a trip to Paris. Bitch.... WHY????? 

I will be reading the next three stories this weekend when my kids have another library event.