Bookseller of Kabul

I'm a solid 100 pages into Bookseller of Kabul as of the writing of this post (hampered, clearly, by the frenetic rush until the junior thesis is due), and I have to say that the one thing that's keeping me from truly embracing this book is the subject matter itself. We read A Thousand Splendid Suns earlier this same year, and all I feel I'm doing right now is reading a slower, less organized, less exciting version of that same book. One of the things I definitely noticed and disliked when I read A Thousand Splendid Suns was the general over-the-top qualities. Even though the fictional story was, in fact, not entirely dissimilar to real experiences for many, many Afghan women, the way it was told and the fact that it was, in fact, a work of fiction, made it hard for me to be totally invested in the lives of the women in the story. There was no male character with whom I could relate, and the end result was something I did not entirely enjoy. That said, I'm nonetheless finding myself continually intrigued by Bookseller of Kabul. I think the fact that the story is told from a variety of points of view other than the "oppressed woman" archetype lends the book more credibility, in my eyes. In fact, through the eyes and thoughts of a male character who sees the oppression of women in his country as a normal and justified activity, I am more upset by the practice than I had been previously. Additionally, I like the fact that the story is told in a series of short chapters and experiences that only loosely relate to each other. This way, I feel I can focus more on soaking up and internalizing the atmosphere and characters themselves, instead of a more direct plot that would have only resulted in a certain detachment that Bookseller of Kabul is able to avoid by being the product of a foreign journalist's own experiences.