Anyone who has read A Thousand Splendid Suns knows that no other character in that book has sacrificed more than Mariam. From the very first chapters of the book all the way to her heart-wrenching death, her life was nothing but hardships. Hardships she endured just like her own mother had taught her. She evolved through the book, going from an ignorant child who thought her mother’s words were just those of a woman too bitter to function, to someone who understood those words-to someone who became the mother Laila and her children needed in a time of crisis.

In her youth, Mariam ran away to live with her father, as she thought her mother was just trying to keep her from happiness. Her mother, one of the most flawed characters in the book,