THE MOUNTAIN ECHOED

"The mountain echoed" is the third book written by Khaled Hosseini. It is one of the different books written by him in a different perspective. All nine chapters are written with the narration of each character. The story is told by nine different characters in each chapter and all the characters are related to each other.

The foundation of this book is built on the relationship of a 10 years old boy Abdullah and a 3 years old girl Pari. The siblings have a strong bond after their mother had died. Abdullah was more like a father to Pari than his brother.

In this book Khaled Hosseini focus on siblings and their relationship. The foundation of the story lies with the relationship of Abdullah and Pari, their step mother Parwana and her sister Masooma and an Afghan-American doctor Idris and his cousin Timur.

Every time I read Khaled Hosseini's book, the story made me into tears that how He and all the Afghans have suffered during the most difficult period of war. This book is not directly associated with Taliban and war instead it is written on how the families suffered after war.

The struggles of the characters in this book were personal and unrelated to the political turmoil in Afghanistan. And these lines of Hosseini turn me down into tears: " I hope a day will come when we write about Afghanistan, when we can speak about Afghanistan in a context outside of the wars and the struggles of the last 30 years. In some way I think this book is an attempt to do that."

The novel opens with the story of Abdullah and Pari's. As I already mentioned that Abdullah and Pari had a strong bond, after their mother had died it was Abdullah who has raised Pari like a father. Their father Saboor decided to sell her daughter to a wealthy childhood family in Kabul.

Saboor didn't want Abdullah to come with him and Pari but he insisted to come. On their way to Kabul Saboor told his children a story about another poor farmer who was forced to give up his beloved child and that the adopted child was happy in his life. The moral of the story was: "how at times of need, one has to sacrifice a finger to save the hand."

When Abdullah realizes what is happening to her sister he pleads and wails against Saboor's rule that he is not allowed to cry in Kabul. Mr's Wahdati the adopted mother assure him that it is best for Pari and he will understand it when he will be older.

Another chapter was narrated by Parwana and her beautiful sister Masooma. Parwana was a less favored child so in a flash of jealousy, she pushed Masooma out of the tree which made her paraplegic. After their parents death Parwana took care of her sister. Masooma asked Parwana to help her commit suicide so she would marry Saboor.

Parwana and Masooma had a brother Nabi who worked for Mr.Wahdati the adopted father of Pari. Nabi became infatuated with Mr.Wahdati's wife Nila. After Nila told him about his inability to have children, Nabi arranged for Pari to be sold to that childless couple. After Pari was sold to the couple Nabi was no longer welcomed to the village.

With the passing years several incidents happened that further drifted apart the two siblings. Abdullah leaves Afghanistan. Mr,Wahdati suffered a stroke and Nila took Pari and left him to Nabi and move to Paris, where her mother lives.

Before leaving Paris she found Mr,Wahdati's sketch books in which he had drawn Nabi several times which shows that he loved Nabi so much and he was so important to him than his own wife. Nabi took care of Mr,Wahdati for over 50 years. Mr,Wahdati even gave all his assets to Nabi.

 After Mr.Wahdati's death Nabi took his assets as a mandate and later before his death he named all his assets to Pari who was the real owner of all the things left by Mr.Wahdati. In this part of story you will also learn about the childhood of two cousins Idris and Timur.

One character that has stuck with me was Nila Wahadati, Pari's adopted mother. She was a well-known poet. The most interesting part was the opening of chapter VI opens with Nila Wahdati's interview. Khaled Hosseini portrays one the most amazing poets of Afghanistan in his novel to show that poetry is an asset of every Afghan women. In 1974, Nila Wahdati committed suicide.

With the broken threads which were started to emerge in the end Pari came to know that he was not Nila Wahdati's biological daughter and she had her own family in Afghanistan. She came to know about her brother whom she later found and gave him a visit.

Many times I found this novel disconnected because every character in this novel has a story to tell. The struggles they face and the heartbreaking challenges they have faced in their life. It is story of hope, hope of meeting your loved ones, hope of reuniting with your family.

I will recommend this novel to you as it is an epic tale of families suffering and facing hardhips at the most difficult time in their lives. Go ahead and read it.

Some amazing lines from this novel are:

" Nothing good came free, Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency."

"A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop on board, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later."

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

One of Paula Hawkins best novel is "The girl on the train." It is one of the psychological thriller novels. It is a story full of thrill and suspense. I really like this novel because thrilling novels are at their best caught your breath at every next scene that what is going to be happen next. You just keep on reading the novel in a single go. The girl on the train was one of 2016's best seller novels.

This novel is written as a first person narrative as the story is told by three women Rachel, Anna and Megan. The story begins with Rachel's narration. She was a 32 year old woman, reeling from the end of her marriage with Tom. Tom left Rachel for another woman, Anna Watson. 

Rachel has a habit of drinking which was the cause to lose her job. Because of her bad smoking habit she often faced severe blackouts too. She often harasses Tom as she has litter or no money once she sobers up.

 Rachel and Tom were friends and they were happily married but Rachel was unable to conceive and that inability of hers turns her into an alcoholic person. Tom too left her and married Anna. Tom and Anna were living happily with their daughter Evie.

The sight of Evie fuels Rachel's self-destructive tendencies as was unable to conceive because of her inability. Rachel has lost her job but she follows the same her same routine of taking the train to London every day. The train slowly passes from her old house where now Tom, Anna and Evie live happily.

The sight from the train was the best part. She watched from the train a beautiful and a very attractive couple living a few houses away from Tom's house. She idealizes their life and called them as Jason and Jess. She taught of them as a perfect couple and they were living a perfect life.

The second narrative of this story is Anna. Anna was a young and beautiful girl. She was a house wife. She loved to be at home with her daughter Evie. Anna firstly enjoyed the idea of showing off her beautiful life to Rachel that Tom chooses her over Rachel.

If we come back to Rachel's part while travelling on a train one day she saw Megan which she called as "Jess" with another man. It was not Scott (Jason), his husband. The next day Rachel found herself awakens as bloody and injured. She has no memories of last night that what happened to her.

At the same day she came to learn that Megan was missing and she was called by the police because Anna had reported her to the police. She told the police that she had seen Rachel drunk last night near their place when Megan went missing. She also told the police Rachel's harassment to her family.

Rachel told the police that she had seen Megan with a man and that she was having an affair. She got interested in that case as she had the feeling that that she had seen something the night she was drunk and Megan was missing. She also met Scott, Megan's husband as Megan's friend.

The third narrative of this novel is Megan. Megan had a troubled past. She found her life boring and she visited a therapist Dr Kamal Abdic and told him the darkest part of her life. Rachel thought that the man he saw that day with Megan was Kamal.

Rachel took a therapy session with Kamal. Her motive was to recall her memory of that day when she was blackout and to find the relationship of Kamal with Megan. A few days later Megan's body was found and she was reported pregnant. 

Rachel begin trusting her own memories more and she believed that many of the crazy things that Tom told her that she did while she was drunk really never happened. Rachel thought that it was Tom who killed Megan and she warns Anna as well.

Anna thought Rachel as a crazy person as she didn't wanted to believe what Rachel was telling her. She was scared at time that how Rachel harassed her in the past. Once Rachel came to her house and took Evie when Anna was not there. Rachel told Anna that she took Evie out of an act of love as she always wanted to be a mother but it was not possible for her.

I'm leaving the last part for you to read as a thriller or suspense. Do read this book to know who the real murderer is. What happens in Rachel's life in the end and also watch the movie. The movie was not as good as the novel for me but still I will recommend you to watch it after reading the novel.

Here is a glimpse from the movie "The girl on the train."