A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini
Two Afghan women born a generation apart are thrown together by war and loss, in the same author's harrowing story of survival that includes domestic abuse.
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Books like The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner follows Amir, a wealthy boy in Kabul whose friendship with a servant's son is broken by a betrayal that haunts him for years. These six books bring more sweeping stories of guilt, loyalty and families shaped by war.
Books to read next
And the Mountains Echoed
Khaled Hosseini
A brother and sister separated in 1950s Afghanistan send ripples through many lives, in a story told in many voices from Kabul to Paris to Greece.
Atonement
Ian McEwan
A young girl's half-innocent mistake in 1935 England ruins other lives, and the novel follows her guilt into World War II, in a literary novel with war scenes.
Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi
Two half-sisters in 18th-century Ghana take separate paths, and each chapter follows a descendant, in a story of slavery and its legacy.
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee
From a Korean fishing village in the early 1900s to Japan, a family fights for a place through war and prejudice, in a sweeping multigenerational saga.
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
A foster child in Nazi Germany learns to read and steals books to share them, in a moving story narrated by Death, with loss and wartime violence.
How to choose
The Kite Runner pairs a childhood friendship with a lifetime of guilt, so choose by what you want to follow. For more from Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns centers on two women in Afghanistan, and And the Mountains Echoed follows a separated brother and sister through many voices. Atonement is the closest on guilt, a literary novel about a child's mistake. Homegoing and Pachinko are sweeping family sagas, and The Book Thief follows a young girl through war. These are heavy books. The Kite Runner includes sexual violence, war and suicide, A Thousand Splendid Suns includes domestic abuse, Atonement includes sexual assault and war, Homegoing includes slavery and violence, and Pachinko includes sex and a suicide, so check content notes first.
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