And the Mountains Echoed

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars | 41,092 ratings

Price: 1.99

Last update: 07-20-2024


About this item

An unforgettable novel about finding a lost piece of yourself in someone else.

Khaled Hosseini, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page.

Top reviews from the United States

Viviane Crystal
5.0 out of 5 stars The Bonds of Sibling Love!
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2013
There are many kinds of poverty, financial poverty and mental/emotional poverty the most obvious herein. What people do and become to surmount these formidable obstacles is the essence of Hosseini's latest novel. It is in the early 1950s in an Afghan town called Shadbagh. Abdullah and Pari are the children of Saboor who begins this story by telling them the story of a young boy who is stolen by a djin. Little does the boy Abdullah, who loves his father's tales, realize that his sister Pari will be sold within the week to his step-Uncle Nabi's employers, Mr. Wahdati and his wife Nila. Nila is a central focus for most of this story as she is a famous poet but intensely unhappy woman. After her husband has a stroke, she will leave him to live in Paris with Pari. At this point, one wonders how Abdullah and Pari will ever find each other, given their phenomenal closeness before their separation.
After they leave, Nabi takes care of Mr. Wahdati, even after he discovers a secret that almost made him leave. We then hear of another sibling story between Parwana (stepmother to Abdullah and Pari; their father's second wife) and her sister Masooma who had a horrific accident and makes a decision that Parwana must carry out, one that frees both sisters from a life of being burdened by each other. This aspect cuts to the soul of the reader, requiring a courage and sense of self that is true albeit more poignant than words can express.
Then we hear the story of a young boy whose father is narco wealthy, who makes his money from selling the poppy flower and who has bought the land in Shadbagh on which Abdullah and Pari grew up. A family member inherited the property but was cheated out of it by the wealthy but generous man.
The bond between Nila and Pari is explored next. Pari truly understands her mother but it doesn't make it any easier, especially as Pari always has this feeling like something is "missing."
The story of Markos' friendship with a young girl is heartrending but beautiful as well. The young girl has been permanently disfigured by a dog bite; and though totally revolted initially, Markos and Thalia grow as close as siblings and remain so their entire lives, especially in their connection to other characters in this fictional tapestry.
A reunion will end this novel, one that will initiate a freedom for the daughter of Abdullah, who wound up in America running an Afghan barbecue restaurant but is now old and ailing and his sister Pari.
So much can be said about this story of real and evolving sibling relationships. Though not quite as violent as Hosseini's previous two novels, there are fierce moments but more of a sense of honesty, integrity and endurance that truly evolves into bonds of connection equal to and greater than siblings. No, I haven't by any means given away the whole story; there is so much more in these pages that is compelling, intriguing, brutal, funny, tender and just sheer beautiful. Khaled Hosseini is a literate fine, fine writer and this book is his best yet!!!! This reviewer hated it to end and is hoping Hosseini will keep writing which he does so magnificently!!!! This novel deserves multiple awards for its greatness! Enjoy every line, every page!
Tigerlily64
4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and complex
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2024
Hosseini writes exquisitely with breathtaking passages. However, there are so many characters and so many stories that it can be confusing. Some editing would have improved what is still a beautiful book. I want to read it again, and I expect to appreciate it even more.
S. Schell
5.0 out of 5 stars A New Classic - Hosseini's Finest Work
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2013
Khaled Hosseini is good. Very good. 38-million-copies-sold-internationally good. So-successful-he-quit-his-decade-long-career-as-a-physician good. But does this mean he's talented? Of course he is. But not all bestselling authors are. Ever heard of E.L. James or Stephenie Meyer? Or how about Dan Brown? Brown's books have sold over 200 million copies, been translated into 52 languages, and he has lots of critics (not to mention haters).

So why trust my opinion? Let me explain.

There are lots of talented authors out there but often where they excel in one area, they seem to falter in another. There are skilled grammarians, wondrous wordsmiths and magicians of metaphor, but even equipped with all that they fail to produce a story that flows and that holds a reader's interest. Then there are the gifted raconteurs, writers who rule with style rather than language, and take readers so deep into their own world that those people forget they're just sitting in a chair with a book in their hand.

There are great writers and then there are great storytellers. Khaled Hosseini is both.

"And The Mountains Echoed" is his finest work. Complex, interweaving, always poignant, and often heartbreaking. The novel is prefaced by a story that establishes a perpetually bittersweet undercurrent and it shares the same central theme of family and friendship that his previous novels are known for, yet the myriad of stories he includes here makes these themes seem much weightier by comparison. Set in Afghanistan, America, and France and spanning more than 50 years, the novel takes the reader into many a character's private hopes, dreams, joys, regrets, and pain, and the six degrees of separation between them all. Hosseini described it as "revolving around brothers and sisters, and the ways in which they love, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for each other."

I was moved many times as I read this, in particular by the book's opening involving the folktale of the div who stole away children from a village. That story alone was enough to make my heart ache but there was much more wrenching stuff to come. I loved how he began it with the brother and sister, how it mirrored the story of the div, and that he closed the book with those siblings - it made it feel like everything came full circle. I also loved the common thread of each character having some sort of void within themselves, and how each struggled with it and/or desperately tried to fill it.

Much as I would like to say this novel is perfect, it isn't. There are sections here that didn't seem in keeping with and/or had tenuous connective threads to the rest of the story. The chapter featuring Idris seemed as though it was written more for the purpose of elucidating a Westerner's limited knowledge of the inherent problems in Afghanistan. The chapter featuring Markos seems solely an examination on friendship and the relationship between mother and son. If these sections hadn't been a part of the novel, they could certainly stand on their own as short stories.

"And The Mountains Echoed" is the type of book that I very much see being added to - and pushed to the forefront of - required reading lists for high schools nationwide in that the enormity of its themes and its observations on the sociopolitical climate in Afghanistan are of significant value in the realm of contemporary literature. It is destined to become a new classic.

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