Book Review: The Kite Runner

I loved this book. Plain and simple.

It took me a few days to actually become immersed in the story, but as soon as the pace picked up a little bit, I became an unstoppable reading machine. I stayed up past my bedtime on more than one occasion. I put off meals so I could read Just One More Paragraph. And I spent about 30 minutes sitting at my desk at work reading frantically so as to finish the book before my boss showed up and told me to get back to work.

Khaled Hosseini wrote an amazing novel about love, family, trust, and above all, betrayal and how to move forward from the wreckage that it creates. The book is relatable in a way that I would never have expected it to be. Amir, the main character, is Afghani and Muslim, and was born in the 1960s. I am Canadian, not religious at all, and was born in the 1980s. He is raised by his emotionally distant father, having lost his mother the same day he was born. I was raised by two parents who were anything but distant, and I have never lost a loved one.

All things considered, I should feel no connection to Amir. But Hosseini looks past these fairly shallow differences and gets to the root of what is really important: human nature, the connections we make with one another, and the fear of truly loving another person. Like Hosseini’s characters, I was forced to look beyond the initial disparity between myself and Amir, and see that religious and class differences do not make one person more equipped to handle this fear. It’s there, inside all of us, waiting to be acknowledged. And once we acknowledge that it is there, we can confront it, keep it from prohibiting us to care for one another.

I can’t believe it took me this long to finally read this book. Especially since I’m a sucker for books that have been made into movies. I like to read the book and then rent the movie as soon as possible to compare. (For the record, I watched the film version of The Kite Runner over the weekend. And it didn’t even compare to the book.)

Details:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
ISBN: 978-1594480003
Publisher: Riverhead Trade