And The Mountains Echoed

Author: Khaled Hosseini

One-sentence summary: A decision that a father makes sends ripples throughout not only his family, but other spheres and families as well across several generations.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 8

Our favorite thing about it: The story was interesting and well woven together despite having so many characters. 

Our least favorite thing about it: The lack of a central main character and the sometimes tenuous connections between stories.

Main Topics of Discussion: Mother/child relationships, tragedy, human nature, choices

Our favorite quote: “One is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person’s heart.”

Notes: We liked this book quite a lot. The story was really interesting and easy to read. Although there were a lot of characters, it was not too hard to keep track of them. Each story was moving and impactful in its own way and also in how it wove into the central story of the novel. The characters choices and responses to pain and tragedy made for a very insightful commentary on human nature. Family relationships, especially those between a mother and child, were explored in almost every scenario. In every story there was a bit of tragedy whether great or small, which also comments on human life.

Some critiques we had were minor….that there was no main character and we sort of missed that connection and consistency. But this was a different format, and we could appreciate that. Some of the connections between the characters and stories were feeble and a couple of them didn’t seem to go as well with the main “weave” of the story. We enjoyed them anyway; they just seemed a little superfluous. However, we really enjoyed reading this book.

Memorable Meeting Moments: We met at Chuy’s for dinner since Rachel was between homes. We did go to her new house for the first time for dessert, though.

What We Ate: Various favorite dishes at Chuy’s – some of us trying the Boom Boom sauce for the first time – margaritas, sangrias, chips and creamy jalapeno dip. Dessert was a deep dish chocolate chip cookie cake with buttercream frosting.