The Kite Runner Review

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini tells the story of Amir, an Afghan novelist who lives peacefully in California with his wife. Life in the USA is good for Amir. As he said, living there is like swimming in the river, where he may throw away the frightening memory he had back in Kabul and let it sink, hopefully forgotten and never remembered. However, a call from a literally old friend of his inevitably makes Amir go out of the warm safety of the "river" and back to his homeland where he will atone and redeem himself for the wrong that he had done when he was a child.

This novel is simply astounding. I loved it so much...I think I love this novel even more than the Harry Potter series. My love for it is evident due to the fact that I've finished reading those 402 pages i just two days. You know the feeling when you know need to stop, but you yearn to know what happens next? That's precisely how I felt reading the book.

The plot is intricately written. How Hosseini divided the book into two parts, the first part being Amir's childhood and the second part being the way Amir redeems himself for what he did, was very unique since the second part, though different, always alludes to the happenings in the first part.

The characters are very interesting. Amir's development was blatant. When he was a child, he yearned for his father's acceptance, he lusted for it so much that he would do anything, even if it means hurting his loyal assistant, Hassan. But when he realized that what he had done has affected the lives of everybody in the household, he becomes enveloped in remorse. Realistically, he reacts like a coward for he never divulges the thing he had done, until he was 38 years old and realized he must redeem himself.

The theme of the novel tries to decipher the definition of friendship. Who you're friends are. What is a friend. Another theme is racism. Hassan and his father Ali, are Hazarans. An ethnic group in Afghanistan that are treated cruelly at those times. The novel shows how Ali is always picked on by the neighborhood kids and even more troubling is the traumatic incident which involved Hassan and a group of Pushtans (the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan) that Amir witnessed. But a more important and larger theme is redemption. Redemption of one's past mistakes in order to correct the present.

Overall, I can't say anything bad about The Kite Runner since it's very VERY good. It might not be favorable to those who have a distate towards drama, but it's still worth reading. I'm not a fan of drama but this book made me take a liking for the genre. The book even made me more interested towards the Afghanistan and its history since the timeline of the story occurs during historical times (i.e: Dethronement of the King of Afghanistan, The Soviet Invasion, The Taliban Regime).

Read it. Or if you're to tired to read a novel, you can watch its movie in youtube. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfz9GLWijss&feature=related

The movie is very accurate, though some parts are cut.

Due to boredom, I shall try to make a summary of the Kite Runner. :) Coming Soon.