Title: The Kite Runner

Author: Khaled Hosseini  

Genre: Fiction, Historical, Contemporary

Publisher: Anchor Canada  

Format: Paperback

Pages: 394

*Warning: mature content. Parents please be advised.*

Rating: 5/5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads):

“I sat on a bench near a willow tree and watched a pair of kites soaring in the sky. I thought about something Rahim Khan said just before he hung up, almost as an afterthought, ‘There is a way to be good again.’”

Now in paperback, one of the year’s international literary sensations — a shattering story of betrayal and redemption set in war-torn Afghanistan.

Amir and Hassan are childhood friends in the alleys and orchards of Kabul in the sunny days before the invasion of the Soviet army and Afghanistan’s decent into fanaticism. Both motherless, they grow up as close as brothers, but their fates, they know, are to be different. Amir’s father is a wealthy merchant; Hassan’s father is his manservant. Amir belongs to the ruling caste of Pashtuns, Hassan to the despised Hazaras.

This fragile idyll is broken by the mounting ethnic, religious, and political tensions that begin to tear Afghanistan apart. An unspeakable assault on Hassan by a gang of local boys tears the friends apart; Amir has witnessed his friend’s torment, but is too afraid to intercede. Plunged into self-loathing, Amir conspires to have Hassan and his father turned out of the household.

When the Soviets invade Afghanistan, Amir and his father flee to San Francisco, leaving Hassan and his father to a pitiless fate. Only years later will Amir have an opportunity to redeem himself by returning to Afghanistan to begin to repay the debt long owed to the man who should have been his brother.

Compelling, heartrending, and etched with details of a history never before told in fiction, The Kite Runner is a story of the ways in which we’re damned by our moral failures, and of the extravagant cost of redemption.

Review:

There are so many amazing aspects to this book. The author is able to tell a tale of brutality, loss, love and friendship in a powerful and moving way.

The book is centred around two characters: Amir and Hassan. Hassan and his father work for Amir and his father, so Hassan is like a servant to Amir.

Amir struggles with many things in this book and you kinda feel bad for him the whole way through. He struggles for his fathers love and attention, and he struggles with his relationship with Hassan. He knows deep down he loves Hassan, but he struggles with calling Hassan a friend.

Hassan is a child who is full of life and accepts that he is part of the lower level of society. He loves Amir and would do anything for him.

To me, Hassan as the Kite Runner symbolized the love he has for Amir, and the kite symbolizes their relationship. “For you, a thousand times over,” Hassan says to Amir when he goes to get a kite for Amir.

The book was written so well and I cried many times. The book is a bit graphic, but this adds to the shock factor of the novel. The author did an amazing job of explaining Afghan society and what people thought when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. I definitely recommend this book to everyone, although you may want to wait until you’re older to read it, due to some mature content.

Happy reading bookworms!