Your Rating and Overall Opinion of And the Mountains Echoed

[Scott]

How did you like reading And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini? Would you recommend the book to others? Why or why not?

[shellyb]

It does jump around a lot in time place and characters but this is a good thing as it makes for an active read. It took me a while to get into but then i was hooked.

[doglvr]

How did you like reading And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini? Would you recommend the book to others? Why or why not?

I loved this book. Of course, I'll read anything by the author of The Kite Runner. I had ordered this book from our library It hadn't even been published. I was a little dismayed by a Boston Globe reviewer who found it rambling and too many characters. He must have read it at a bad time as I read it in 2 days and had no trouble with the characters. It followed the same families into old age.

I've recommended it to all my friends and expect to have it as one of our local book club reads.

[Fran]

And the Mountains Echoed is a beautiful book and I savoured every word right to the end. Opening with a father telling his children a fable, of the type told by parents to millions of children down the centuries, but this fable has an uncanny echo in the events that befall the characters in the book.
A brother and sister from a remote Afghan village in the 1950s are travelling to Kabul with their father oblivious of the reason for the journey to the big city and unaware that the most significant event of their lives is about to take place. It is the echoes of that event down the years across continents and lives that gives the book its beguiling title. The closeness of the relationship between Abdullah and his little sister Pari (Fairy) is most poignantly defined when Abdullah trades his only pair of shoes for a peacock feather to give Pari and the sundering of their relationship is the single most dominating event of Abdullah's life and a defining event in all the other characters lives, even if many are unaware of it until the end.
I can undersatand why some readers have highlighted a difficulty with keeping track of the characters as the book moves rapidly in time and place, from rural Afghanistan to Kabul, to Greece, to France and US and there are a lot of characters to reconcile. I would just say don't get stressed about it just keep reading and the characters slowly resolve themselves and their relationships and interactions become apparent.
I loved this book and especially Hosseini's writing style ... "the long string of simple rituals that make up a lifetime" - quite beautifully put IMO.
As with The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the themes are again guilt, love, loss, forgivness and reconciliation. All the characters are suberbly drawn with depth and sympathy & it is difficult not to feel an empathy for them even when their actions appear cruel and thoughtless.
I recommend it without hesitation to anyone who enjoys a good story and bewitching characters. It was an excellent choice for Book of the Month.

[Mdlifelongreader]

I thought this was a wonderful book. It is different from the author's other books in that it is more of a collection of short stories than a novel. However, the stories are all woven together - part of the fun of reading the book is figuring out how some of the less-than-obvious connections between the stories are developed. I have read all of this author's books and loved them all.

[Sonal]

I had been eagerly waiting for the release of 'And the mountains echoed' after reading other two books by Khaled Hosseini, namely, 'A thousand splendid suns' and 'The kite runner' that have moved me deeply.But to my dismay, 'And the mountains echoed' did not stand up to my expectations.The book is basically about a brother who truly loves his younger sister but circumstances do them apart.The entire book gives the description of the lives of people who are related to the sibling, such as their stepmother, their uncle and a few others while the siblings have a small, though touching, role to play. Khaled is truly a gifted writer and can definitively write something better. I respect him for showing the true colours of the lives the people, the women , children and men of Afghanistan.

[tuttifrutti56]

It is a excellent book.Very emotional.I love the part where pari reads the letter by her uncle nabi...

[ayotha1970]

I recommend it without hesitation to anyone who enjoys a good story and bewitching characters. It was an excellent choice for Book of the Month.

@Fran, thank you so much for the summary, I needed it so much and looking forward to reading it . After reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, I need to confess that I have fallen in love with the author and planning to read all his work .

[A24]

After recently reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and loving it, I knew I wanted to read this new book by Khaled Hosseini. It definitely didn't disappoint. It did take me a little while to be absorbed as it does jump around with different characters and places, but once I did I couldn't put it down. I loved the writing style and the mini stories in one. When you start a chapter on a new character, you don't always know who it is at first. I loved trying to figure it out and connecting the related stories. It was tragic at times and so true how each major decision we make affects the rest of our lives and many times those around us as well. A beautiful book that I recommend to all. Each time I read stories of life in Afghanistan, I feel so blessed to be a woman in the United States. 5 stars.

[Gannon]

Great review Fran!!

Amazingly written this book. Very very similar to "Ghostwritten" and "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell, which can only be a good thing. I know it is a little hard to get to grips with at first but once the reader settles in to the style of writing it turns out to be a very rewarding novel. Heartbreakingly sad at moments, and joyously uplifting in others, I loved the ending. The return of the "feather" tin is a masterstroke and finishes the novel off brilliantly.
Imho the underlying theme of the book is love. Love in all it's forms and just how powerful love can be and what it can drive us to do for others.

[joreasonable]

unfortunately I am one of the few who didn´t finish it, I was very frustrated with all the jumping around and this is the main reason for not finishing. I haven´t read any of the authors previous books, (although I have seen the film of The Kite Runner) so I can´t compare to them. I guess we can´t all be pleased.

[lucyrebecca123]

Having just finished, and loved, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns this book will definitely be going on my 'to read' list!

[Smarty79]

I really enjoyed And the Mountains Echoed. His book Kite Runner is one of my all time favorites. I do wish that there was more character development. It was interesting how he enter twined all of the characters in the book. I always finish his book with my views and opinions changed.

[Smitha Nayak]

Mountains” spans several generations and moves back and forth between Afghanistan and the West. (Mr. Hosseini says the title was inspired by William Blake’s poem “Nurse’s Song: Innocence,” which refers to hills echoing with the sound of children’s voices.) It grapples with many of the same themes that crisscross his early novels: the relationship between parents and children, and the ways the past can haunt the present. And it shares a similar penchant for mapping terrain midway between the boldly colored world of fable and the more shadowy, shaded world of realism.

[Imogen]

I absolutely loved this book. As I think the second post mentioned, it did jump around a bit between different characters/decades/cities and it took me a while to get into the book, but once I got about 40 pages in I read it so fast.
It was just so beautifully written. I haven't read any of Hosseni's other books, but I have them and I'll be reading them very soon!