Paula Hawkins: The Girl On the Train
It’s been a while since I’ve read a thriller and I’m glad that this book brought me back to the genre. The concept of this book is just great, all of the three narrators are incredibly unreliable so it’s hard to figure out the plot right away, which I love. The story unwinds slowly and the characters are first introduced as strangers that somehow end up in the same mess in the middle of a murder investigation.
This book was hard to put down as the plot gets more complicated and new points of view are introduced along the way. None of the main characters seem to be mentally stable and each of them has their own problems to figure out alongside the murder. I loved how complex the characters were and they remained that way through the book until the very end. The story is mentally quite draining, at least it was for me, as it spins around depression, alcoholism, fear, stalking and many other issues that do not come through as very pleasant. These elements do make the book more authentic though and create the feeling of uncertainty through the book which I think is what makes this book so exciting.
The language of the book was complex enough to maintain the feeling of uncertainty without making the book too hard to understand. Switching between narrators created nice extra tension as right the moment when something was about to unwind the point of view changed and even more information unraveled through that. I loved this book and now I really want to get my hands to Hawkins’ Into the Water!
Khaled Hosseini: And the Mountains Echoed
I can’t stop loving Khaled Hosseini even though this is only my second book of his that I’ve read. He is truly an amazing storyteller and this book brought so much joy into my life. Compared to the Kite Runner, the topic of this book wasn’t necessarily as heavy even though both books touch the topic of before and after the beginning of the everlasting war and its consequences in Afghanistan. This book is build around the theme of family and its importance and at the same time loss of it. This book is constructed of several separate stories that are beautifully knit together in the bigger picture. Every story makes sense in the end. Overall the book is a beautiful story of the search and reunion of two siblings who were inseparable in their childhood but were ripped apart against their will and when they do find each other again, it’s heartbreaking.
I really enjoy reading books that are based around other cultures than the Western one and I think Hosseini does such a great job in presenting the real Afghan culture, before and after the beginning of the war. His writing is eloquent and it’s easy to follow even though the point of view changes in every chapter. I also appreciate how he uses letters, phone conversations and magazine articles to tell the story of some characters. These ways of telling the story bring more life to the narrative and they allow the reader to get deeper into the story of the characters that might not be possible if the story was told from one point of view only.
The focus of this book is clearly family relationships and how they develop in different surroundings. The story shows the pain that comes from sacrifices that sometimes have to be done in order to secure the safety of the family and it also shows how family isn’t always about blood-relation but unconditional love and acceptance. This book was such a great reading experience for me, can’t wait to explore more of Hosseini’s work in the future.
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