For the Love of a Son

One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child

By: Jean Sasson

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

From the time she was a little girl, Maryam rebelled against the terrible second-class existence that was her destiny as an Afghan woman. She had witnessed the miserable fate of her grandmother and three aunts, and wished she had been born a boy. As a feisty teenager in Kabul, she was outraged when the Russians invaded her country. After she made a public show of defiance, she had to flee the country for her life. A new life of freedom seemed within her grasp, but her father arranged a traditional marriage to a fellow Afghan, who turned out to be a violent man. Beaten, raped, and abused, Maryam found joy in the birth of a baby son. But then her brutal husband stole him away far beyond his mother's reach. For many long years she searched for her lost son, while civil war and Taliban oppression raged back home in Afghanistan.

Set against a landscape littered with tragic tales of horrific suffering, Jean Sasson, author of Princess, chronicles the story of one resolute but tormented woman determined to achieve freedom and equality with men.

©2010 The Sasson Corporation (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

About all stories have a happy ending

I won't give details about what happens but I'm the kind of person who likes to feel a sense of completion at the end of a book. I've loved all of the other books by this author but this one left me unnerved. Maybe it's because I have a son myself so I could imagine some of these things happening. I know that life doesn't always have a happy ending but if you're the kind of person who likes to read books that have a resolution, you may not be happy with the resolution of this book.

I couldn't stop listening

I feel compassion for the main character. My, what a terrible heartache to lose your son in such a terrible way. I don't want to spoil this book for listeners so I won't share details. However, I will say that this story was amazing and heartrenching. I highly recommend it.

Fabulous

I couldn’t stop listening on audible. This is one of the best books, ever. I just finished, and I’m in a state of shock! It was just so good..Read it, or listen to it… You’ll have a new appreciation for just about everything 😳

This is a well - written book on a subject of the blind mother love

I could not relate to any characters in this book. The protagonist kept making stupid decisions right up until the end. Life did not teach her anything. Her family, driven by blind allegiance to their tribal values, betrayed her and she still stuck with them after two major betrayals that put her life in direct jeopardy.
What’s disturbing is that people like the protagonist’s son, who was directly connected to the Taliban and steeped in their values, got a free entry into the United States.
On a different note, the protagonist hated and loved the wrong people. The Russians she so detested wanted equality for women who were stuck in the stone ages, albeit their methods were questionable, while the “freedom fighters” she respected were brutal in their treatment of women.
I am disgusted by the protagonist, her father and sister, and most of all her son.
Maybe this is an appropriate reaction to a well written book.