Another slow reading month, thanks to my impending move and other life challenges. I read one meh book whose title I can’t remember and I read a book that will stay with me for a while: A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi.
Set in Afghanistan, Hashimi’s book centers on a women’s prison and on one prisoner in particular: Zeba, who is awaiting trial for the murder of her husband. Like Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, A House Without Windows focuses on the lives and challenges of women in Afghanistan—but that is where the similarity ends.
Hosseini’s book was stark, dark, and violent. Looking back, I can see clearly that—even though it’s about two women—it was told through the male gaze.
A House Without Windows, on the other hand, is a story of women told by a woman. It doesn’t grab and shake you. It lulls you in, tells a wInding tale, at times seems to lead down the garden path, until it reaches a satisfying conclusion.
It’s not a perfect book—there was one plot twist in particular that seemed too pat, too coincidental—but it was an engaging, effective mystery and a welcome glimpse into a country that seems to have been largely forgotten by the media and general public.
