In this third book, Khaled Hosseini has a different narration style compared with the two novels before this. The story has been separated into nine stories with each chapter is told from a different character's point of view. Each story consists of various humans' traits such as greed, selfishness, materialistic, caring, responsible, and so on. I do believe some of those stories do exist in our real life.
The story sets in Kabul and expands to Paris, California and Tinos as the story keeps flowing further. The main characters are Abdullah and his sister Pari but the story not only involves their separation but also other characters who involves in their life. The story consists of several sub-stories about other characters when they are experiencing the miserable separation. The list of characters can be found here: Character List and Analysis.
If I am being asked whether I like this book, my answer will be average. Although the narration style to separate the different characters' stories might seem easier to understand but I will prefer the author's previous writing style. I had read the previous two books long time ago. If I'm not mistaken, the previous two books do not have too many flowery words or overly detailed. I'm not sure whether it's because I've read other different genre novels before this and reading this book with too many flowery sentences is really hard for me to understand the story. To be honest, I have to read a couple of times for some paragraphs to understand the meaning. Well, I admit that my English is not that good to capture the meaning of those flowery words and I guess I really have to work it out more to improve myself. I'm not saying the author's writing is bad, in fact, I feel he's a talented writer and a good storyteller but the writing style in this book doesn't suit me. In brief, I like the previous two novels comparing to this one. I guess it's a bit disappointing and not what I expected.
If I am being asked which story from this book that I like the most, my answer will be Parwana, Nabi, and Idris. Like I mentioned before, the author has an exceptional skill in telling his stories and he has a great writing skill to tell his stories that can touch the readers' heart. I feel those three stories are the best among the others. I feel touched and sad at the same time. However, towards the end, I feel some of the characters' stories are unnecessary to be included in the book, such as Adel, Markos and worse is Thalia. Despite I like Idris's story, I feel both characters, Idris and Timur, are irrelevant and unnecessary to be included in the story. The entire story is a bit draggy towards the end and I was struggling to finish the book. It makes me feel some of the characters' stories are just simply included in the book when there are lacking of stories to tell about Abdullah and Pari.
Rating: ★★
More reviews can be found on Goodreads: And the Mountains Echoed.