The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.

Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.

The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park. --Lisa Alward, Amazon.ca

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Ideal for a panto - Rated
I enjoyed reading this, but not in a good way, and am happy to say that it was a borrowed copy. Although a well-constructed story, it was full of ridiculous and improbable coincidences, and populated by characters out of a pantomime. By the time it got to the Nazi-Taliban baddie, I was practically rolling on the floor laughing, which is probably not the effect the author had intended. Conclusion: a fun read, but don't take it too seriously.

CRASS - Rated
I am struggling to finish this book, where normally if a book is well written and a good story I would not be able to put it down. The fact that that it is a struggle suggests that the narrative is not captivating enough and the subject is too cliche. Everyone seems to be raving about this book, including my mum and brother but I am finding it more than a little disappointing, I have never been to, or read much about Afghanistan, but I can read between the lines, the setting and details in this book are borderline Panorama-documentary style. Don't get me wrong, I started The Kite Runner with an open mind, wanting it to be as good as the hype, but it just isn't, sorry.
The word crass comes to mind, it could have been SO much better than this.

A gripping novel - Rated
Beautifully written. The story is told in such a way that you can even smell the ideas. The ending doesn't do the first part of the book any justice at all though and drifts off into melancholy.
Well worth the read!

I loved this book - Rated
I loved this book. Once I had started it I couldn't put it down. It is very moving, beautifully written and facinating with the backdrop of the troubles in Afghanistan and the complex cultural divisions. I cared very much what happened to the characters and although I wanted to rush towards the end of the book to find out what the ending had in store, I felt on finishing it that no other book could match up to it for a while. If you enjoyed this book it is worth reading ''The Bookseller from Kabul'' which is also very well written and very good indeed. The second book from Khaled Hosseini is also worth reading. I give ''The Kite Runner'' 10 out of 10!

Tragic, human, uplifting... - Rated
It's taken me a while since reading Kite Runner to put pen to paper. The book leaves you with plenty to think about, not least the plight of Afghanistan, the wreck of a beautiful country and the abandonment of its people; a land riven by religious zeolotry, civil war, internecine tribalism and global politics...

Khaled Hosseini tells a wonderful, tragic, uplifting, ever-so-human tale of a boy-come-man whose self must face the ultimate test before becoming "good again". This process he must undertake to release himself from the clutches of an insurmountable, guilt-ridden past.

As he begins his journey back it is as if the kite strings of the past are finally loosened and released, and his soul begins to fly. And as readers, we are all invited to chase after...