2007 ( )

Good one... it'll make you think... Great story! ( )

Depressing! ( )

This book has taken me quite a while to be able to review it. I had such mixed emotions after reading it. I loved the book, yet I hated it for what it stood for. I despised what happen to Hassan - trying to avoid reading it as if it would help him and I struggled with Amir and how he treated Hassan after the incident. Guilt and shame will do a lot of damage to a relationship and the struggle with it broke my heart. No matter how badly things become, there is always a chance for redemption. This book had me drawn in from the beginning, but really played with my emotions. ( )

Awesome! ( )

A great book made into a great film. We used this for the annual "But the Book Was Better" book/film discussion series at the Morton Mandan Public Library in 2009. ( )

Reading the Kite Runner was like a journey on a long emotional rollercoaster ride. You're dealing with issues of innocence and guilt, hope and despair, dignity and degradation, humanity and cruelty, capture and rescue, redemption, how one's past actions will inevitably come back to haunt one. I felt the ending was a little rushed and I really didn't need to know the full trauma of what Sohrab went through. I wanted the author to infuse more about Muslim religion, different ethnic groups, the Russian invasion and the Taliban into the story. Simple prose yet enough to evoke vivid imagery, and awaken one's senses to the colours, sounds, smells and tastes of the Middle East. Aside from some of its outdated repressive customs, pre-rev Afghanistan sounds like a beautiful country. Just like the General in the novel, I do hope that one day, the Afghan people can return to their homeland to peace and posterity. ( )

The beginning was good, but it got unbelievable after awhile. I'm not sorry I read it, though. Okay story. ( )

The Kite Runner is an extremely well-written book about two boys growing up in war-torn Afghanistan. It follows the tragedies and triumphs that only individuals who live in these circumstances can truly understand. It was heartwrenching and heartwarming at the same time. ( )

Seagle, O. (2007). The kite runner. Children's Legal Rights Journal, 27(2), 54-7. Retrieved October 29, 2009, from Article Citation

Stevens, P. (2003). The kite runner. School Library Journal, 49(11), 171. Retrieved October 29, 2009, from Article Citation database.

This came to me highly recommended. That is, the "OMG THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD" sort of highly recommended. But you know, I wasn't all that impressed with it. The bits and pieces of Afghan culture that shone through now and then were interesting, but really it was just your standard tale of betrayal, guilt, and redemption. Pretty predictable, all in all. I'm not saying it wasn't well-written, just that it didn't really grab me. Part of this problem may be due to listening to it on audiobook, which was read by the author. Some people believe that authors are the ideal choice for narrators, but I disagree. Sure, the author may know best how the characters are supposed to sound, but that doesn't mean s/he can reproduce them. Not everyone is a good voice actor, and Hosseini, for all his talent as a writer, most certainly is not. I'd say I'd consider reading the printed version at some point to give it a second chance, but I'm sure I'd still only be able to hear his monotone voice in my head. A shame, because with the right narrator I'm sure this could have been a very moving tale. ( )

Reviewed by Steph for TeensReadToo.com

THE KITE RUNNER is a beautiful story written by Khaled Hosseini (not to mention the first Afghan book to be written in English). The novel follows Amir , a boy living in Afghanistan with his father, Baba. The two have been living by themselves since Amir's mother died during childbirth. Well, not really alone. The servant, Ali, and his son, Hassan, live in a hut in the backyard. While they may be servants, Baba looks to them as family. Hassan and Amir grow up together and became friends.

As a child, Amir was always troubled. He felt that he didn't have his father's love, so he was constantly trying to win that love. Amir easily got jealous of Hassan, because Amir felt his father loved Hassan more, since Hassan was such a great athlete and such an honest person. But one day Amir witnesses an injustice done to Hassan, and although Amir could've stopped it from happening, he didn't.

Shortly afterwards Ali and Hassan leave, even though Baba pleads for them to stay. Amir watches as Hassan and Ali climb into their Mercedes and drive off, never to be seen by them again. Soon after that, Amir and Baba escape to the United States to get away from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

There, Amir graduated high school and went to junior college to become a writer. Amir ended up marrying a nice, pretty woman named Soraya. Shortly after the wedding, Baba dies of cancer. Amir is even more depressed when Soraya and he find out that they can't conceive a child.

Amir and Soraya keep on living life and the years passed. They led normal lives; he as a writer she as a teacher. They lived in a comfortable house with a dog. But one day, Amir's past caught up to him. He received a phone call from an old family friend, Rahim Khan, asking Amir to come to Pakistan.

Amir arrives in Pakistan to see his old friend close to death. But that's not why Khan asked Amir to come. The fact is that Hassan was killed by the Taliban a few months ago, along with his wife. The two left behind their son, Sohrab, who is living in an Afghan orphanage. Khan asks Amir to go find the boy and bring him back to Pakistan so he can live with a nice couple and get away from all of the death and destruction the Taliban has created in Afghanistan.

Amir decides he will go find the son of his late best friend. Only after saving this boy from all the evil in Afghanistan will Amir be saved from the sin he committed so long ago as a child.

This riveting and emotional story catches the readers from page one until the ending. The readers learn about the important history of Afghanistan and the impact of those events on its people. Hosseini wrote a true masterpiece in this novel. It is sure to please all who read it. ( )

This is a powerful story... a beautifully crafted novel. ( )

An EXCELLENT book. About two boys growing up together in Afghanistan, their choices and life long consequences. ( )

An unforgettable book about friendship and brotherhood. Heart wrenching, real. ( )

Afghanistan, 1975. Trotz ihrer unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Stellung wachsen Amir und Hassan wie Brüder auf. Doch die Freundschaft der Kinder wird auf eine harte Probe gestellt. Der Verrat des einen wird dem anderen zum Schicksal. ( )

Boooring. ( )

An astonishing story of a wealthy boy(Amir)from Afghanestan; his friendship with his playmate, and the tragedy they have gone through, his realtion with his father, the flee of Amir and his father to United States when their country was gone through political changes by Russian invasion, Amir's return to his country at Taliban ruling. Khaled gives different aspects of a life in Afghanestan. While plotting Amir's persoanl life and its transformation over time, he touches afghanestan culture, the existing ethnical groups' friction in the country before and after political changes,and the way it affects bittersweet ending of the story.
With Khaled's powerful and emotional writing style, you would live within the story.

I finished The Kite Runner a week or two ago, and I've been meaning to write this not-a-review for a while now, but I can't quite wrap my head around what I thought of this book. Really, it's perfectly well-written and an interesting story. This morning some people were chatting about how they thought it was emotionally manipulative, the kind of reading experience where you can actually feel all those writerly devices that are meant to fuck with your feelings, and while I admit that it's a pretty bleak tale at times, I didn't feel particularly manipulated while reading it. Not like plenty of other books I've read, anyway (I'm looking at you, Time Traveler's Wife!)

It didn't make me cry at all, but then I was talking with a boy at work about it and he said he couldn't stop crying while reading, so then I wondered if maybe I'm heartless. It wasn't that I didn't have an emotional connection to the characters; I connected with Amir and Hassan just fine, and to a little lesser extent to the father and to the little boy, Sohrab. The fact that I knew certain tragic things were coming didn't really make me dread them, and it didn't really lessen their impact, either; in fact, I kind of appreciated the heads-up so I could prepare myself for it.

Anyway, things I liked about the book were its description of Afghanistan in both eras--this being a subject I really don't know much about at all--and the author's development of the relationships between the narrator and the other characters. I like the way our understanding of Amir's relationship with his father grows and changes, even beyond the life of his father, the way we as readers can see so many angles of the interplay between cause and effect and chance and manipulation and tragedy. Likewise, the relationship between Amir and Hassan (and Sohrab, by extension) continues to deepen throughout the book, long after the incident that drives them apart.

I think overall some parts of this book could use some tightening up; some scenes seemed a little redundant and not very critical for the story nor for the themes. The middle of the book was kind of blah overall, and I'm not sure I ever got a sense of what it was exactly that Soraya saw in Amir to love. Until the very end when he redeems himself, it's hard to find anything real lovable about him. But I guess somebody had to be working from the States to have that miracle move of a surprise temporary visa or else...? Or else the plot would have stalled out a little bit as they were trapped in Pakistan.

A nice book, though, that I have recommended to D. because he just finished reading a book about a soldier's experiences in Afghanistan and enjoyed it a lot. ( )

Good book. Power-of-One type story of Afghanistan - historical fiction, boys, coming-of-age. Redemption. Sad and powerful. Very well-written. ( )

Wow, this is an amazing page turning, “I can’t put it down” type of story. The topics are very serious, dramatic, and fantastically well written. I loved all the characters in the book; they possessed the frailness all humanity has. I was impressed with the development of the relationships between the characters, the war action, and romance to boot! It is awesome when the author is able to surprise the reader with something completely unexpected. I have recommended it to all my adult friends. I was surprised to see it had won the YALSA award because there is a child sexual assault early on in the story, although it is not graphic. The book also has a traumatized orphan boy who is sexually exploited by a Taliban leader. I would not hesitate for a moment to recommend the book to my own teenage daughters, but I am a little concerned about students who have conservative parents at school. ( )

Great story. Love the kites. Really hard to put down ( )

This book will forever be one of my favorite novels. I have read it at least 5 times and am awed each time. I became so obsessed when it was first released that I went to a conference to meet Khaled Hosseini and then ordered a set to teach to my Honors level ninth graders. Every one of them finished the book before the due date, and our discussions were so spirited that many of my lesson plans were tossed out the window. I've never had a class discussion be as student driven or intense. They even decided to do a fundraiser for Hosseini's charity and raised almost a thousand dollars. Any book that can get teens that engaged and inspired is a gem! I highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys historical fiction that is also gut wrenching and hopeful at every turn. ( )

The characters are wonderful. The story is moving and it brought all sorts of emotions out of me. I could not stop reading it. Khaled Hosseini is a brilliant writer. I would recommend this book to anyone, this was one of our featured titles in my library. ( )

Touching, amazing, emotional, thought-provoking and fantastic. Everyone should read this book. Maybe they already have?! ( )