Book Review: "The Kite Runner"

Title: The Kite Runner
Author:Khaled Hosseini
Pages:372
Personal Rating: A or 5/5
Number read for the year: 29


Goodreads review:An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from the final days of Afghanistan’s monarchy to the atrocities of the present.
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption. And it is also about the power of fathers over sons -- their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvasses of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject -- the devastating history of Afghanistan over the past thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.
Author Biography: Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, the son of a diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980. He lives in northern California, where he is a physician. The Kite Runner is his first novel.

Personal Thoughts:Phenominal book!! I don't know why it's been sitting on my TBR shelf for sooooo long, I can't wait to get to A Thousand Splendid Suns! That one is also in my stacks, I bought them at the same time...a few years ago, when they were going through their hayday, it's taken me just now to get to them...this book makes me thank God for allowing me to live in America, and for the men and women in our armed forces who are willing to risk their lives to go into a place like Afghanistan and save those less fortunate, as well as make sure our country stays a free place.