Okay, I’m sitting at my desk in my office right now trying to stop crying my eyes out. I just finished The Kite Runner , in a mad dash to finish before getting here this morning. And the book that has made me cry on several occassions – almost always on the T – has made me cry at work now too.
Damn that was a good book. If you haven’t read it yet, what are you waiting for? Though, I’ve seen at least 5 other people on my commute reading it too. Don’t read the rest of this if you haven’t.
I’m not a good book reviewer so I’ll keep this brief. This was such an excellent story. I was immediately hooked with the “friendship” of Amir and Hassan and most of my crying came from anytime Hassan was put down or hurt. Often the best stories are about relationships set against a broader conflict and this was no different. Following Amir’s path to redemption and forgiveness allowed us to keenly feel the tragedies that surrounded him. His desperate search for Baba’s approval cost him the one relationship in his life that was really worth anything. I think we all knew that Hassan was going to turn out to be his brother (half-brother) but reading Amir finding that out was a blow all the same. And when we found out that Hassan had been murdered, we felt the pain right along with Amir.
The whole thing was just wonderful, in a bittersweet kind of way. While I thought the last part of the book was a little too predictable and Amir’s journey to get Sohrab was just a little too easy, I liked how the end wasn’t wrapped with a nice little bow. And I loved that it ended with kite running. You get the sense that, even if things aren’t right now, they will be sometime past the end of the novel. I think the only big shocker in the whole book for me was Sohrab’s attempted suicide. That threw me big time.
Like I said, I’m not a book reviewer. These are just my initial thoughts just having finished the book. I would like to read Hosseini’s new book A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Anyone who has read the book, what were your thoughts? Did you like it as much as I did?
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