And The Mountains Echoed

Three weeks without a post...I am not proud of that. It concerns me that I don't express myself like I once did, but I read a book that I loved so much that I had to write about it, even if no one will see my review. It is called And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, and I was awed. The scope of the story, its many shifts in direction and the sentiment that touches the soul without resorting to manipulating the reader's emotions shows that Hosseini is a master. Just writing about it brings it back to me: the love of the brother and sister who are separated at a young age, only to be reunited 60 years later when neither can remember, the brother who never forgot until old age damaged his memories and the sister who was too young to recall the love they had. That was the main gist of the novel, yet there was so much more, and it all fit together, a puzzle stretching from Afghanistan to Paris and to California. The only reason I grabbed it was because it had large print but I am so glad I read it. I just wish the story had been longer, though the ending was exactly where it needed to be. Simply an amazing book. It transfixed me from beginning to end. It made me think of my own family, especially with the recent death of my sister Mary. I have been separated from them as was Pari, the sister, but it was my own doing, and there will be no bittersweet ending, only a descent into oblivion; no thousand tragedies per square mile, only a palpable dread.