And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini Review

To start off, I love the author. His other two, more popular books I’ve read were tear-jerkers. I wanted to read more of his work, which is how I learned about this book. I’ll give a review solely on this book and not compare it to the others.

The book started off very strong. I was very intrigued and didn’t realize at first that it was a story within a story, but that turned out to be a great way to begin. Learning about the siblings and their beautiful bond was truly spectacular. They shared a connection that lasted through time, although in different ways (you’ll understand when you read the book in its entirety). That was what I loved most.

After the first couple of chapters, my initial interest reduced. For some readers, it may not be easy to follow along, as there were different POVs, some of which felt incomplete. This made the book feel like several short stories combined into one. While some aspects of these stories felt relevant to the main storyline, others did not.

At times the narration shifted between first-person and third-person, which made it feel like a lot to take in. However, my need to know how it ended kept me going, and I’m glad I stayed until the end. The characters I felt most connected to were given enough closure for me to understand how their stories ended. Not to give away too much, simply knowing what became of those characters was enough for me. Whether the ending turned out the way I wanted was not particularly important.

Some characters were not very memorable, though others might feel differently. A few storylines ended on cliff-hangers, and I still find myself wondering what became of those characters.

Overall, this book had a strong and intriguing start and explored a beautiful, enduring bond between siblings. While the multiple POVs and fragmented storytelling made parts of it harder to follow, the emotional core and the resolution of the characters I cared about most made the journey worthwhile.