Customer Comments

This has probably been my most anticipated new release for a very long time. Like many people, I was totally awestruck by Hosseini's first novel The Kite Runner. His second; A Thousand Splendid Suns is up there in my Top Five Books, I was astounded by the story. Bearing this in mind, and despite my delight at acquiring a pre-publication copy of And The Mountains Echoed, I was a little nervous that I may be a little disappointed. Khaled Hosseini's fans do have to wait a long time between books, its been five years since A Thousand Splendid Suns. I can truthfully say that this is certainly worth that very very long wait. Once again, Khaled Hosseini has produced a story that will break hearts and leave his fans, new and old, gasping for more.

This book is incredible in so many ways. A rare gem that will make your heart pound like a thriller and make your hair stand on end from the prose. Also rare in the fact that it's written in present tense, yet flows effortlessly. Though I'm a fan of the present tense it has a number of limitations, one of which being that it feels unfamiliar, since most people are used to reading in the past tense. But I hardly noticed it wasn't in past tense. I got about fifty pages in before I realized. That's how perfect and necessary it is. And actually, this book made me rethink the way I write in first person. Hig's narration is fractured, often in incomplete sentences. And of course it is. That's how people really talk, even to themselves. Especially to themselves, especially in a world as lonely as this. And the way he left certain things unsaid. Genius, really. Said out loud they're cliches; unsaid, they're landmines, his emotional revelations. Really it's what the narrator doesn't say that's important. The blank spaces we, the readers, fill in with our own universal experience. Utterly brilliant.

This is one of those novels I want to carry around to show everyone, to bring up in every conversation even tangentially related to reading or the Northwest. I cried when I turned its final page. I wept for the characters, for the past, for the gift of reading sentences so beautifully and thoughtfully constructed. I reckon this will be one of my top read. Brava, Amanda. Thank you.

This one was clearly a win for me as a biography of Catherine the Great. Massie's writing is clear, brisk and kept the story moving throughout. What I really enjoyed was how he took the time and trouble to show how Catherine carried forward the reforms begun by Peter the Great, and was a monarch who overcame a great deal of adversity to overcome the obstacles of not being Russian, being a woman, and a usurper to boot -- most biographies focus on her time before becoming empress and/or her lovers -- while Massie does look closely at several of them, he also wisely discards the more wild rumours and looks at what Catherine actually did. While I did receive an ARC of this, I still intend to buy a copy of the finished edition. This one gets five stars from me, and a hearty recommendation for anyone interested in Tsarist history.

I absolutely love the Kate books. I recommend all 20 of them no matter what genre you like to read. I haven't finished one yet without wanting to read more. At least in the past I was still catching up with the series, so there was more to read. This latest book reads like Romeo and Juliet in the modern day, but with some modern twists. I'm just bummed I'm going to have to wait at least a year before I find out what happens next. I don't remember any of the other Kate books ending with such a huge cliff hanger. Seriously, if you like mystery/true crime books, check out anything written by Dana Stabenow. If you like books with a strong female character who takes no prisoners, definitely check out the Kate Shugak series. You will love them. But read slowly, when you get to Bad Blood you are going to be left wanting to know what happens next

I am glad that I did give this book a try. It has historical fiction elements that I love. It has great characters that are ripe for discussion at a book club. It is a book that's did not want to end. But end it did and I am still remembering the story and the characters and wishing it was not over. This book was a wonderful book about decisions made while young and the consequences to those decisions but it is primarily a book based on wonderful characters and the unexpected things that happen during life.

Because while I will probably never hike the PCT, because while I will probably not go through the things that Cheryl went through on her way to the PCT, I have had my own share of what I've had. And her chant, her present-tense chant on the trail (I am not afraid, I am not afraid) is the kind of chant any one of us might have, doing any one of the hundreds of things we must do to live our lives. That is what this book is about, to me. It's beautiful. I want to give it to people.