And the Mountains Echoed

By: Khaled Hosseini

Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini, Navid Negahban, Shohreh Aghdashloo

Length: 14 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

On May 21, 2013, the new novel from Khaled Hosseini: an unforgettable story about finding a lost piece of yourself in someone else.

Khaled Hosseini, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each passing minute.

©2013 Khaled Hosseini (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Beautiful

A tragic and beautiful story, filled with hope and love of humanity. I loved that the readers had accents that matched the locations. It made it more authentic for me.

2 bad narrators, interesting but disjointed story

This is a difficult book to review. I love Khaled Hosseini's writing. The Kite Runner tugged at my heartstrings and made me cry. I liked his second novel, too. This third one is more similar to his second one (but even more dramatic; overly dramatic, I thought) in that it brings the threads of different characters together - but they are even more characters, even more diverse, and the switching between them (and across time) is very frequent and sometimes annoying. You start to care about a certain character, then you're switched to another time and place and you need to adjust. What made it all more dramatic (and it was already quite dramatic with the storyline) was the switching of narrators. In the end, the book as a whole was too dramatic to touch me in the same way The Kite Runner had.

Let me talk about the narrators. Disclaimer: English is not my native tongue, and I am quite tolerant of various forms of accented English. I have no problem listening to an entire audiobook narrated in an Indian accent, for example. But this book's narration was annoying. There is one pleasant narrator with a slight accent, whom I take to be Khaled Hosseini. The other two were very annoying to listen to. I initially thought they were Afghan but later started to think they were chosen because they are Afghan who also spoke Greek/French and English. But their English is really not good enough, in my opinion, for them to narrate an audiobook. I'm sorry. But it really detracted from my enjoyment of the book.

It's possible the narration biased me against the book - but that was a risk the publishers took, and I think they need to deal with the consequences

Another heart aching yet heart warming novel by KH

a lovely read that transforms the reader into a world of agony, love, war, & reality. In this novel the author intricately reveals lives of todays, tomorrows, & yesterdays. It triggers the reader to review his own life, its present, past and future to be. I would have loved though for the author to have narrated it all as other performers made the listening so troublesome at points. the pace of narration kept changing from narrator to another which made the listening experience less enjoyable unfortunately.

wonderful writer, narrators could be better

it was sometimes difficult to catch what the narrators were saying due to their accent.

Oustanding

Would you listen to And the Mountains Echoed again? Why?

This is the second book I have read by Khaled Hosseni, but the first audible. The narrators were perfect for the parts they read. Very engaging story.

What was one of the most memorable moments of And the Mountains Echoed?

The story told by the father in the beginning

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The voices fit the characters.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes, but could not

Nice story but not what I expected.

Would you listen to And the Mountains Echoed again? Why?

Yes. This book was more about family relationships, choices, and commitment than a 'page turning' historical fiction novel. The story itself is nicely woven together and, as good writers do, puts meaningful words to describe complex feelings and behaviors that provided perspective for me personally.

Nice weaving of stories

Unlike some of the comments, I enjoyed the approach the author took with writing intersecting stories around a theme with different points of view. My only complaint is I found one of the narrators hard to understand -- kind of garbled diction. Sometimes he sounded like a drunk Borat. I would have preferred a native English speaker. Other than that, some really touching moments.

My most favorite author

I laughed, I cried, I hated and I loved.
He is one of my most favorite writers and I will read anything he publishes.

Disappointing

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I thought the story was really disjointed. There were too many loose ends. Too many parts of the story that didn't seem to have much if anything to do with the main thread.

What could Khaled Hosseini have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

He could have done a better job in the end of pulling things together and helping the reader to understand the importance of each segment.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

The boy Abdullah.

Was And the Mountains Echoed worth the listening time?

Not really.

Any additional comments?

I have enjoyed other books by this author. I also enjoyed the different narrators. Though the accents were sometimes hard to understand, they gave me a sense of the characters.

Excellent story

This story is captivating and very well written and voiced. I even listened to it once and got it again by accident! But as i started listening for a second time i was completely engaged because its really a good listen.