Penned by Sterndal» reading and http://www.sterndal.com A freelancer's life Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:45:05 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Unforgettable Mariam http://www.sterndal.com/2009/06/04/unforgettable-mariam/ http://www.sterndal.com/2009/06/04/unforgettable-mariam/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:49:12 +0000 sterndal http://www.sterndal.com/?p=44 She is probably the most striking novel character I have ever known. I’ve already read the book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, more than two times and she still makes me teary-eyed. Based on the author’s description, there is nothing really special about Mariam. She is someone you can’t call beautiful, a village girl who never had the opportunity to attend a formal school, and a person whose experiences are mostly tragic.

I am not so sure if it’s because I am a true-blue daddy’s girl that made me relate to her story. I just grew up believing that Daddies are God’s most precious gift to little girls so I find it really hard to accept the part when she was given away to an arranged marriage by her own father. At the tender age of 15 (I think), she was forced to marry a man who is more than 20 years older than her. It wouldn’t be much of a heavy-drama novel if the man was nice to Mariam. But the evil brute abused her physically and emotionally. I was amazed on how she was able to forgive and find peace at the end. It’s just disappointing that her story is really happening in some places of the world.

I don’t like this kind of stories. I personally prefer feel-good books. But something happened at the last few chapters that made her character unforgettable and the book worth-reading :)

]]> http://www.sterndal.com/2009/06/04/unforgettable-mariam/feed/ 1