I wanted The Pearl That Broke Its Shell to be as good as The Kite Runner. Harper Collins certainly went out of their way to tie this book to Hosseini and, of course, the books share the same setting. But, while I enjoyed this story, it was a far cry from The Kite Runner (my favorite of Hosseini’s books) and even A Thousand Splendid Suns and And The Mountains Echoed. I liked the dueling and intersecting stories of Rahmia and her great great grandmother Shekiba, women in modern day and early 20th century Afghanistan, respectively, but I felt like there was nothing new to these tales. It was astonishing how little things had changed for these women in all that passing time, however. The ending is hopeful, but I had trouble staying awake to finish. That’s never a good sign. Honestly, I would give this one a pass – it didn’t do anything for me.