A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

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Before you shop for A Thousand Splendid Suns, here is the summary. It is the story about Mariam. She is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism.

Book Summary:

Mariam, a young girl in the 1960s, grows up outside Herat. It is a small city in Afghanistan. Mariam has complicated feelings about her parents. She lives with her spiteful and stubborn mother, Nana; while her father Jalil, a successful businessman, visits Mariam — his only illegitimate child, once a week. Mariam resents her limited place in Jalil's life; she wants to live with him, his three wives, and her half-siblings in Herat. She makes her wishes known by asking Jalil to take her to see Pinocchio for her fifteenth birthday. Jalil reluctantly agrees, but then never shows up to take her to the film. Mariam walks to heart and finds Jalil's house, but he doesn't let her in, so she sleeps on the street. The next morning, Jalil's chauffeur drives Mariam home where she finds that her mother has committed suicide.

Jalil's wives want nothing to do with Mariam, so they force him to let her marry Rasheed, a widowed shoemaker in Kabul. At first Rasheed treats Mariam decently, but after she suffers miscarriage after miscarriage, he abuses her both physically and verbally. It becomes clear that Rasheed's only use for Mariam is in her ability to replace the son he lost years ago.

What's Next? 

Growing up down the street from Rasheed and Mariam is Laila, a young, intelligent girl from a loving family. However, the Afghani war against the Soviets disrupts Laila's childhood and both her older brothers leave to join the war. Laila seeks comfort from her best friend, Tariq, a boy a few years older than her.  A few years later, war reaches Kabul and bombs fall on the city regularly. By now, Tariq and Laila are teenagers and in love. As Tariq tells Laila that he and his family are fleeing to Pakistan, the couples makes love for the first time, quickly and passionately. A few days later, Laila's parents decide to leave Afghanistan as well, but as they are packing a rocket hits their house, killing Laila's parents and wounding her.