A powerful novel focused on post 9/11 Afghanistan with perspectives both from both Americans and Afghanis. This book is heavy, and the author's years as a journalist in Afghanistan are beautifully evident. There is an important story here about how the war affects Afghani women, but more so about how living in a country at war affects every aspect of life and colors every relationship. I enjoyed this book and how deeply it made me think. Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing a digital copy for review.

Set mostly in the early 2000s and post 9/11, SILENT HEARTS by Gwen Florio is a recently published novel that explores parallels and contrasts through the intertwined lives of two women. Liv is an American expatriate in Afghanistan with her professor husband and Farida is an educated Pakistani who is newly married to the son of an Afghan businessman whose trade involves drugs and guns. Yes, despite clear differences, both women are often defined by their husbands' roles and impacted by the men's emotions: "Liv thought of her life in the sheltered embrace of the college campus, first as a student, then a researcher and Martin's wife. Of the things in that universe that depended upon the whims of men. A door held open for her, or not. A date. A promotion. In this world [Afghanistan] a woman's very life could turn on whether a man had had a bad day."

With Farida acting as translator, Liv interviews Afghani women about their life experiences, preparing reports for an NGO named Face the Future. Both Farida and Liv display resilience and develop a mutual regard for each other, even bonding over Alice and Wonderland, the story of "a girl whose curiosity led her to ever-stranger places, who did her best to adjust to incomprehensible circumstances, but who inevitable called stupidity what it was." Gwen Florio is a prize-winning journalist who has reported from Afghanistan and she movingly conveys the difficulties and dangers there as well as explaining cultural and religious differences. SILENT HEARTS received a starred review from Library Journal, has a helpful discussion guide here, and is definitely recommended for book group discussions.

Silent Hearts was a depressing book, An American couple go to Afghanistan eight after 9/11 and work for an organization that supports Afghan women. The husband is a creep who strayed before the move and strays again. That's not the only betrayal in the story. In the end, the wife returns to the US bitter and numb. Hardly an uplifting story.

I loved this book. Florio writes an extaordinary story, where the internal lives of each of the characters is fully formed, and completely reasonable. Afghani, Pakistani, American, each character is self-consistent. But its when they start to interact that the magic happens.

Each pair-wise interaction is a logical consequence of the beliefs and lives of the couple in the pair. Couple, loosely speaking, because it isn’t just in the marriages, partnerships, and love affairs, but in the most casual of relationships that the characters interact. And when the interactions come a society, a village, a city, a country, these Afghanis, Pakistanis, Americans, are completely dysfunctional and unstable.

The lesson of this book is harsh, and unforgiving. No one can be trusted with your heart. If you do trust, you will be destroyed. No matter how much we want to change the world, its implacable realities are that change will only happen with unbearable and heart-breaking slowness.

5 piercing stars to Silent Hearts! 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Farida Basra is an educated Pakistani woman, and on top of that she has been working outside the home to help support her mother and father. Although they are all educated, her family’s finances are limited because of Farida’s grandfather’s decision to oppose the Partition of Pakistan from India.

Farida’s parents worry she will never marry. She has not been happy with any potential suitors. They finally take a “bride price” for her in exchange for her marriage to someone she has never met, the illiterate son of an Afghan strongman. Farida worries desperately for her future and what this marriage will mean for her, as she will likely have to accept a traditional role in her marriage. Once she marries, eventually she is living with her husband in Afghanistan.

Liv Stoellner is an American aid worker who has moved to Afghanistan along with her husband to help women reclaim their lives after years of subservience, servitude, and abject violence under Taliban rule. She and her husband, Martin, have their own crosses to bear within themselves and in their marriage. They are hoping for a fresh start and a new purpose.

For Farida and her husband, Gul, moving to Afghanistan is full of sacrifices from each of them with Farida losing contact with her family, and Gul having to confront demons from a lifetime ago.

The two women are bound together as friends as Farida works as Liv’s interpreter. Both women are resilient and strong, and they each have different experiences in Kabul and are treated dissimilarly.

What I loved most was gaining insight into people’s experiences in Afghanistan post-September 11, especially the contrasting experiences of the female main characters. Gwen Florio is a journalist, and her writing is like butter to read, silky smooth, and the pacing built in intensity as the story moved along.

Overall, Silent Hearts is a deeply resonant story that challenged my thinking about cultural differences, power, politics, and the status of women across many cultures, including my own. Silent Hearts is highly recommended if you are looking for enthralling and thought-provoking storytelling.

I came across Silent Hearts during one of my many NetGalley searches and was lured in by the message that it would appeal to fans of Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns; my most recommended book. There is no doubt that Gwen Florio is an extremely talented writer. Her words created a setting in which I could easily visualize the scenes themselves (which is usually hard for me, I am more of a dialogue fan than description for that reason). Her years as a journalist - and experience covering conflict zones - aided in her crafting the unlikely friendship between Liv and Farida, our two protagonists in Silent Hearts.

Liv is married to Martin (a character whom I detest) whose work with a non-governmental organization will bring them to Kabul, Afghanistan after the September 11th terrorist attacks. At first it is Martin’s expertise that is sought after, but you will come to find that Liv is the backbone of the operation. Farida is hired as a local interpreter to aid Martin and Liv’s transition. Farida comes from a progressive family: she is educated, speaks several languages, and has held a job. Her family needs her dowry and marries her off to Gul – an uneducated man from a well off, very strict traditional family – freedoms she once enjoyed are compromised and a new frightening world awaits. Her father-in-law has motives of his own when he lets her take a job as an interpreter. In a place where women are not respected, it will be Martin who treats his wife more poorly than Gul will treat Farida.

At the 85% mark my heart started pumping with anger, fear, and anticipation. I was scared for the future of these two women that I had grown so fond of. They put themselves in danger every day for other women, and other women are shown to do the same. The story will come full circle and you will realize the placement of certain characters and scenarios were carefully crafted. This will not be the last of author Florio’s work that I will read: the only question is which one will I start with?

This is a beautifully written novel and one of my favorites of the year!

Journalist and author Gwen Florio has covered significant world events as a journalist and has been nominated three times for a Pulitzer. Her experiences and skill shine through with Silent Hearts, a book merging the stories of two distinct women from different worlds ending up in American-occupied Afghanistan. Florio uses her insight to craft a great story with unforgettable characters. Farida and Liv come alive. How each copes with their role in Afghanistan, the fierce traditions, managing during constant crisis, insurgency and instability is riveting. The story truly is moving and it has reminded me to appreciate the littlest things in life. I knew little of the Afghan ethnicity and way of life and appreciated being schooled in the vast cultural differences of this tribal society.

** will add links/postings upon publication date

Beautifully written and incredibly powerful, Silent Hearts takes a dive into post 9/11 Afghanistan through the different perspectives of two women from very different cultures: Liv Stoellner is an American researcher that came to Kabul with her husband to work for an NGO to help women and Farida Basra is a Pakistani interpreter whose work Liv and the NGO heavily rely on... while she passes information about the Americans on to her husband and his father.

My heart felt for Farida from my first introduction to her: strong willed and intelligent, we learn that she brought some form of shame upon her while the family lived abroad in England that made it difficult to arrange marriage for her. She was content with her quiet life in Islamabad, but her father consented to marry her off to an uneducated and illiterate son of a Pashtun businessman. When she was "gifted" a burqa my heart hurt for her as she realized just how different her life truly would become with a strictly traditional family in the north (those her own father had called barbarians). Gul's father arranged the marriage of his son and Farida because of her family's connections with Americans as he was hoping to use them. And then 9/11 happened and they hurried across the border to Afghanistan, crossing thousands of miles by foot, because Gul's father wants to align with whomever wins the war: the Taliban or the Americans. Lovely.

I found myself essentially hating the men in this book, and everyone has secret agendas to hide. I wish that the book had more character development in it, because everyone but Farida (and Gul a little) felt one dimensional to me. I love it when books center on female friendships, and the one that Liv and Farida develop is deep yet I was left wanting much more in that regard. I did struggle in the first 20% of the book with the four point of views and jumping around time periods a bit; while I appreciated the Western perspective of the Americans alongside the traditional and slightly-less traditional Afghani/Pakistani perspectives, I think the narrative would have been better had it been focused on Liv and Farida only. While Gul and Martin's perspectives definitely provide the whole picture of what is going on, I think it could have been discovered easily enough by eavesdropping.

This was not the book for me. but I think that is largely because I generally struggle with contemporary adult fiction that largely centers on marriage (I may be in my 30s but my life experience is so different). I think this would be an excellent book for book clubs as the themes of marriage, power, politics, and the status of women lend themselves easily for discussion. Lovers of women's contemporary fiction will likely enjoy this touching and powerful story.

From the very start, I was a goner. I plummeted into this well-written, beautiful story about two women from different worlds who become deep, important friends for one another. American Liv Stoellner is an American aid worker working for an NGO to help Afghan women recover from years of Taliban rule. Her interpreter Farida Basra is similarly off-balance trying to live the best that she can in an arranged marriage to a man as different in upbringing and culture as she could imagine, cut off from family, friends, the life she knew in Pakistan. While Liv relies completely upon Farida's work, Farida is reporting back on the Americans to her husband and his family who hope to exploit and profit with the information. Florio's writing is so fluid I almost forgot that I was reading a story and not seeing, living, breathing a completely different world. Terrific book for book clubs -- so much to discuss about marriage, the status of women, politics, you name it.

4.5 stars

This story is a powerful reflection of post 9/11 from multiple perspectives and gave a view that we didn’t always see from this side of the world when the war was going on in Afghanistan. Most of the novel takes places there as Liv and her cad of a husband Martin, a man with a dead end academic career takes a job at an NGO in hopes of achieving the professional recognition he thinks he deserves. Liv takes a job with the organization as well, in hopes of helping the poverty stricken women and children whose lives have been torn under the Taliban. Their story takes place along side another husband and wife who are in an arranged marriage. Gul, a traditional Afghani and his western educated wife Farida who is placed as translator in the organization. Their objectives are tied to Gul’s father whose aims are as secretive as Martin’s whose work is not really aligned with assisting the Afghani women. Martin uses Liv to get information on the husbands of these women and Gul and his father use Farida to get information on what the organization is really doing. What these men hadn’t bargained for was the power of these two women and the strength of the bond of friendship between them . Life in Kabul for all of them grows increasingly intense and volatile culminating in an end I couldn’t have predicted.

There is much here about the role of women in this culture where they are made to wear a burka and for me it was difficult to understand the culture where women are subservient to men, but that is the tradition, that is the belief. It was also hard to accept at first, how Farida with her western education and views so easily accepted her life as a submissive wife. It’s interesting to see her marriage along side Liv’s and there were times when they seemed much more alike than different. There is much here about what happened in Afghanistan that I didn’t know.

The novel reads smoothly and moved at a good pace, but it really picks up in Its intensity in the last third. It wasn’t until the last third of the book that the bond and true friendship forged between these two women was apparent. How that friendship developed was missing earlier and that was a little bit of a disappointment, but there is no mistaking how much they cared about each other and respected each other in the end. This is a powerful, informative story of the conflict, the culture in Afghanistan and a salute to strong women. I highly recommend it !

This was a regular monthly read with Diane and Esil and as always it’s fantastic to discuss a book with them.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Atria Books through NetGalley..

I don’t know why, but I expected Silent Hearts to tread more lightly, but it’s pretty hard hitting, especially as you get toward the end. The story focuses on two couples who’s lives intersect in Afghanistan soon after 9/11. Liv and Martin are from the US and go to Afghanistan to do work that is meant to help Afghani women. Farida and Sul, have recently moved to Afghanistan from Pastikan, where Sul’s father runs a shady business and Farida works as an interpreter for the organization where Liv and Martin work. With this set up, the story focuses on the role and plight of women in both the US and Afghanistan. It also deals with the role and effect of foreigners coming into countries such as Afghanistan to ostensibly help women. These topics are dealt with intelligently; there is no black and white; but there is certainly no place for Westerners to feel superior or like they can offer simple solutions. What the story lacks in character development, it makes up for with its thought provoking set up and plot. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

Thanks to publisher and Netgalley for this ARC. This was a very insightful look into the lives of those living in Afghanistan and the daily struggles that they face. Strong female characters and an interesting plot.

Silent Hearts is different from most books I read, and so it really stood out and I think will continue to stick in my mind. It is a quiet sort of book, but this does not mean the story is not moving, it truly is. It does skip over some aspects of life in Afghanistan which I would have liked to see explored more, but I did really enjoy this exploration of friendship between two women in difficult circumstances.

Thanks to Netgalley the author and the publishers for a copy of this book. A riveting read, the first in my opinion on a par with “ A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini. Maybe it wasn’t gritty enough for some and perhaps skips over the darker side of living in Afghanistan but for me it gives a flavour of the everyday life of the NGO’s and that of the struggles of the Afghan women who are more westernised than you think. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

Silent Hearts by Gwen Florio
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. One of the previous reviewers stated, this was a powerful book, and I completely agree with that statement. Martin and Liv are an American couple working at an university. Martin is a professor of Asian studies, Liv is a researcher. After 9/11, Martin is interviewed about the situation in Afghanistan, his opinion is being sought out. Eventually he gets an assignment to go to Afghanistan to work on bettering women’s lives who were so oppressed under the Taliban rule and takes Liv along.
On the other side of the world we are introduced to Farida, an educated Pakistani woman and her family. She is forced into an arranged marriage with Gul, and appears she married his whole family. Farida is allowed to work as an interpreter for the “Amerikis”, mostly so she can gather information for Gul’s father who is involved with the opium and weapons trade. Liv and Farida form a friendship of sort.
We have heard so much in the news about the wars in Afghanistan, but this book made me realize more than the news how the local population was affected, the poverty, the lack of women ‘s rights, starving children, lack of conveniences we take for granted in America. Kudos to the author for painting a sad, but realistic picture of life in Afghanistan at the dawn of the 21st century. Overall a very good book, 4 stars.
Thanks NetGalley, Atria Books and the author for the advanced copy.

This was a powerful book that centered around two women, a westerner, and her interpreter from Afghanistan, their husbands, and life in the Middle East.

I found the book engaging and insightful. However, I was hoping for more about the relationship between the women, which I felt was touched upon only toward the end of the book, and the humanitarian work that they were involved in (or meant to be involved in). This turned out to be not that kind of a book, though.

I appreciated the author's background and knowledge of the Muslim culture, which made Silent Hearts and interesting read.