And the Mountains Echoed

Rating: 1.5 Stars

I have committed reader's felony.

I started this book. And kept reading. And kept reading. And kept reading. And kept reading.....But by god, I now refuse to finish it. So I pray to god this review gives me the closure and absolution sought by all non-book-finishers.


I did not, mind you, throw it aside in revulsion or frustration. By all accounts this should be a good book - intertwined storylines, exotic locations, character growth, redemption. No one particular aspect jarred me. My enthusiasm and interest simply fizzled out until I had neither left, and frankly, this situation is probably more telling about me as a reader than this novel.

I went into it with incredibly high hopes and expectations. Khaled Hosseini, after all, brought us both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, and I was expecting more of the same brilliance. But here is where And the Mountains Echoed fell hopelessly flat for me

1. It follows several characters and arcs. Fine. They're all intertwined in some way. Fantastic. Little nuggets of one story show up in the others. A+. However, all in all this was a collection of short life summaries. There was very little actual dialogue and action, each chapter rather summarizing a good 40 years of one person's life. As a result, Mr. Hosseini often reverted to telling, not showing, and we all know that's a fantastic mode of vivid storytelling.

2 Khaled Hosseini excells in writing about children. So why, oh god why, did he choose to write a good portion of this book from the point of view of 70 year olds. Don't misunderstand, I have nothing against older characters (ie. a certain old man....on the sea....), but I generally dislike this brand of 'reminiscent nostalgia' stories. If you want to tell me the story of a child, tell it through his eyes, otherwise you lose the imagination and innocence intrinsic to a child's POV. There was one portion about two children - two boys - and I immediately perked up....until it ended 10 pages later. But that little nugget was in and of itself was a breath of fresh, Kite Runner-esque air.

3. Some of the stories are just plain bad. It's not like they're boring, it's just that they're....very boring. I just don't care. I don't care about your mother's new intellectual boyfriend that your 13-year-old mind is secretly in love with. I don't care about your edgy poetry and suicidal tendencies. I don't care about your completely original struggle to find your long lost aunt because you feel a connection and won't be complete without her. There is only one story line I truly appreciated - the disfigured girl and her caretaker. The rest were just large piles of .klasldkjoshfnasdfj??/.

That is all. Perhaps my wearied conscience can now find peace when I never pick this book up again.