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Loading... The Kite Runnerby Khaled Hosseini
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I resisted reading this book - I didn't want to read a depressing book. But my son had to read it for English class and asked for some help, so I gave in. And I'm glad I did. This novel is difficult to read at times, but it is also a novel of redemption, and that makes for a rewarding experience. This novel also gives a glimpse into what happened to Afghanistan - how the country fell apart under the stress of war and fanaticism. The story gave me a lot of empathy for all those who lost their homes, their culture, their heritage. (  ) tjsjohanna | Feb 5, 2010 |  Great Story (  ) Rinky | Feb 5, 2010 | Very powerful story about how one decision can affect your entire life. The story is about Amir, the relationships he makes throughout his life, and how he changes into a man that he didn't believe that he could be through his need for redemption. It makes the reader very aware of the way of life of those who live in Afghanistan and especially the hardships of the women and children. ( ) lrothmier | Feb 1, 2010 | I'm a few years behind on this read, but immensely glad I finally picked it up. It's a very quick read - I finished in three days reading in short bursts and finished up crying (I really don't cry much with books or films). There's so much more to say, but for now...just read the book. ( ) sojourner8 | Jan 31, 2010 | This is the go-to Oprah book for the Afghanistan War. This desperately poor country, forsaken and forgotten after the Soviet retreat, was pushed again into the limelight by its rulers' foolish sheltering of the world's number one terrorist. A corollary of William Gibson's "The future is already here - it is just unevenly distributed." is that the archaic past is still with us. Afghanistan happens to be its mother lode. Hosseini's coming of age novel offers Western readers a thrilling but painless introduction to a violent, archaic and unjust world. Hosseini expertly interweaves background information on country and people with a story of friendship, sacrifice and betrayal. When the story reaches US soil, it runs out of steam. The last third may give closure but strains plausibility. The bureaucratic hurdles exposed at the end only hint at the expected difficulties and culture shock. A book that opens a reader's eyes but allows him to preserve his prejudices. ( ) jcbrunner | Jan 31, 2010 | 
 At times, the book suffers from relentless earnestness and somewhat hackneyed descriptions. But Hosseini has a remarkable ability to imprison the reader in horrific, shatteringly immediate scenes... The result is a sickening sensation of complicity. This powerful first novel, by an Afghan physician now living in California, tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love.
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The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.")
Some of the plot's turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America's collective consciousness ("people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz"), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon. --Gisele Toueg
(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:39:05 -0500)
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