Afghanistan a country we see as men walking around in robes holding guns, women covered in head to toe, children with ribs poking out lying on the streets. Afghanistan was not always like this. It started with the fall of their monarchy, then Russia invaded, followed by the Taliban, who rose to power to kick out the Russians. After September 11, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, stating the Afghanistan War which lasted from 2001 to 2014. This story, much like Khaled Hosseini pervious book, The Kite Runner, shows the beauty of Afghanistan, the horrors of what the Taliban had done to their own people, and how they kept faith throughout it all.
Mariam is a harami, in English that means a bastard, or the nicer term a child born out of wedlock. It was never said why Jalil, her father, never married her mother, Nana,
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Her father, a university professor, always valued education, either it was for his sons (Ahmid and Noor), or his daughter. When she is not learning everything she can, Laila spends her time with her best friend Tariq. Tariq has been her best friend since Laila can remember, even though he has a prosthetic leg, that does not slow him down when he’s beating the bully who was mean to Laila. Their relationship was cute, this seven year girl and nine year old boy, playing games of make-believe. Yet as the years go on, her mother gets worried about her daughter reputation because of Tariq. Laila’s brothers enlist in the “army” to take down the Russians who were invading, and were killed in action. Their mother, to honor her sons, told her husband and Laila no matter how bad it gets, she will see the greatest of Afghanistan for her sons. Laila and her father stayed with her mother, as friend after friend got shot by the Taliban, or killed by a stray missile. Nothing was going to make Laila’s family, after all, Ahmid and Noor where the light of her mother’s eyes, nothing was going to make her leave, nothing but