The Bookseller of Kabul - Review

I finished the Bookseller of Kabul a few minutes ago. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. I feel like a spy on the wall of an Afghani home, watching the lives of a single family deteriorating under strict moral codes and ethics. There are extreme levels of sexism and so much ignorance for basic freedoms that so many Americans take for granted. Leila was the person my heart ached for the most, the Cinderella without a Price Charming. Her nephew Mansur was one I came to hate reading about with his arrogant ignorance, and selfishness.

I am eternally grateful for my family for leaving Iran when I was only five years old. I can’t imagine what my life would have been life growing up in a stunted environment where so much is expected, but so little is given. It would have been doubly hard, being Christian, in a Muslim country, as well as a woman.

The men in this book are infuriating, the women deserve pity, but on a whole, its the entire country that suffers. Reading this, seeing Stop-Loss, it makes a person feel very small in this world. It makes all my complaints seem null in void, compared to what could have been, what my life could have been.

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