The ending of a book can complete or ruin the entire story for me. If it's unrealistic or too put together, I'm irritated at the author for not having the vision to know where his/her story is going. Not often enough, I dread the last few pages because I know it's coming to an end and I don't want it to - I want to keep living in this world. (Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings do this to me every single time.)
"Thousand Splendid Suns" wasn't quite to the "NOOO! Don't let it end!" level, but only because the ending was perfectly written. Hosseini tied up loose ends and made his tale satisfying without making it to precious and twee. Beautiful prose, stirring description, heart breaking in it's connection to reality, living, breathing characters and inspiring, this book brings to life Afghanistan, it's people, and the struggles the women and children face under Islamic law. I finished reading and felt I have to do something now. This is the BEST kind of writing there is.
I recently read Greg Mortensen's "Three Cups of Tea" which means I'm on a bit of an Afghani women streak here. That book touched me deeply as well, so I went digging around to see what kind of awareness and financial support programs are available through Mortensen's site. Looks like I just missed hearing him speak nearby: http://www.threecupsoftea.com/Intro.php
darn it. But here is a good organization that has shown it can affect change: https://www.ikat.org/ I'm looking into the Pennies for Peace campaign for my Girl Scout troop to sponsor and maybe as a project at the church too.
Now onto the next book: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Timo started asking about it this past week and read it in one sitting yesterday. He liked it "okay" he said, so I'm going to read it now and we'll discuss it this week. Lots of high-power vocabulary words (thank you Robert Louis Stevenson!) and possibly an essay out of this one.
And now I suppose I should go rally Chris to finish caulking and painting the front door. Ugh. Why did we think this was a good idea? I don't remember.
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So, does this mean you are coming to book club even though it's right before you leave for vacation? The book was great! Especially following Three Cups of Tea. After reading that book, Ryan and I decided to start sending them part of our tithe each month. Such a worthy cause that we could just stand around saying 'what a great cause' without DOING something!
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