A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

I did not read The Kite Runner.  Just want to put that out there.  I read A Thousand Splendid Suns because I'm organizing a fundraiser for the Afghan Women's Writing Project (awwproject.org), and Splendid Suns was suggested to me but not by anyone affiliated with the Afghan Women's Writing Project.  The atrocious treatment of women and the horror of war, seemingly a constant in Afghanistan, makes me very glad that this book has been read by so many people-- for awareness purposes.  Of course, as far as the storytelling goes, I did want to finish the book, and, in fact, I read it quickly.  But I was taken out of the story several times which, if you've read some of my Fiction Writing 101 posts, is not the best thing to happen while reading a story.

I was taken out of the story because I was able to guess what happens next.  I wasn't trying to guess, but it was so obvious  and predictable that I just knew-- psychically I suppose-- that this was how things would turn out.  Here are a couple examples, and if you haven't read Splendid Suns and want to without knowing any of the plot points, you can stop reading.

I knew Laila would get pregnant, and that it would be Tariq's baby, of course.  All that throwing up after she was injured by the attack that destroyed her family's house was just too much, and besides, I knew she was pregnant before all that throwing up.

Laila and Mariam were at odds with each other, to put it nicely, in the beginning, but they become great allies.  Yes, out of necessity but also predictable.

One other thing that bothered me that wasn't about the plot being predictable, exactly:  Mariam's self-sacrfice.  Ok, of course this was supposed to bother me, but there were other ways to resolve that sub-plot without killing her off.

Nonetheless, I wanted to keep reading A Thousand Splendid Suns to find out what happens.