The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

Having recently read the breathtaking “Brick Lane” by Monica Ali, I thought it would probably be quite some time before I read anything quite so evocative or inspirational. I can’t really pinpoint what motivated me to pick up a copy of “The Kite Runner”, it may have been the stunning sepia photograph on the front cover, or then again, it might just have been fate. The author Khaled Hosseini uses the beauty and simplicity of language to deliver a ...
...live, eat and think about The Kite Runner for the time that it takes you to read the book. It’s a short, engaging and totally addictive read at 306 pages, so it probably won’t take that long! The general theme of the book is one of childhood, of redemption and retribution. Amir is a young 12 year old boy being brought up by his father. His mother died giving birth to him. He comes from a rich family in Afghanistan where he and his father live with ...

fantasybeliever 05.08.2004 (07.08.2004) · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini I have not heard a bad word about this book and so when my husband bought it for me for Christmas, two Christmases ago, I was jolly pleased. Not only was it a book I was looking forward to reading, but it is a beautifully made book. The copy I have is a hardback with no dust jacket, just a dark red binding with a sepia toned photograph of a boy on the front with the title in gold above it. It turns out I have the ...
...I knew very little about the story, save that it was about Afghanistan. And I knew less than little about Afghanistan. I knew that it was a country that had been at war for some time, and that it was currently occupied by international troops. Mostly what I had heard came from watching The Beast of War (an unbelievably confusing 1988 film), which had in total taught me that the Russians did BAD THINGS, Stephen Baldwin screams like a girl and tank ...

Pittypomm 07.04.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

I bought the book because four people recommended it highly in a matter of days, they didn't give me any details, only told me that I had to read it, period. The name of the author, Khaled Hosseini, meant nothing to me, not surprisingly, as The Kite Runner is the debut novel of an Afghan whose family received political asylum in the USA in 1980. The first chapter begins with the sentence, "I became what I am today at the age of twelve . . ." creating ...
...negative must have happened to the first-person narrator. We also learn that he is in San Francisco now and that a phone call from Pakistan sets his memory in motion, names are mentioned: Hassan, Ali, Baba and Kabul. My curiosity is aroused, I want to know. The story is set in Kabul, Afghanistan, Amir, the narrator, and Hassan, who's one year younger, are best friends and 'milk brothers', they had the same nurse, both lost their mothers as new-born ...

MALU 08.03.2007 (10.03.2007) · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

...are best friends; Amir is the first word that the slightly older Hassan spoke and the two grew up in each other's pockets. Yet Amir is the son of a wealthy man and a Pashtun, whereas Hassan is the son of his servant and a Hazara. As they grow up, the differences in their background threaten to separate them, especially when Amir's father seems to favour Hassan over Amir. However, they hold on to their friendship, Hassan always ready to support Amir ...
...his friend. As a result, the friendship is doomed. Many years later, after Amir and his father have settled in the US, Amir finds out something that shakes the very foundations of his beliefs and he is forced to return to Kabul, where he hopes he will be able to atone for his sins. Will he find Hassan again? Is redemption possible after all these years? As so often happens with best-selling books, I put off reading this one, which was published back ...

sunmeilan 05.05.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

...actually received my copy of the book for Christmas and it's been sitting on my pile of books, waiting to be read, while I finished my current book (Tsitsi Dangaremba's 'The Book of Not' - which, incidentally, is also very good). The cover is unlike the photo on ciao and is actually a sepia photograph of a small boy looking around a doorframe. To me, this subtle choice of image is far more suitable to the plot of the book than the starker kites-against-the-sky ...
...Reading Experience''' I started the book rather nonchalantly pretty much as soon as I'd finished my previous book. I expected just to read a short snippet of it, but soon found this was one of those books that was going to prove impossible to put down. Hosseini's writing style is entrancing and the imagery of a child's imagining of Afghanistan was wonderfully portrayed. The narrative in 'The Kite Runner' continually refers to later events in the ...

tac20 21.01.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is an absorbing tale of life in Afghanistan. It tells the tale of Amir a young boy from a fairly wealthy family in Afghanistan. This is Afghanistan in the 1970’s before the Taliban and before the Soviet invasion. Amir lives in a nice house with his father (his mother died shortly after childbirth) and in the grounds of the house lives his fathers servant Ali with his son Hassan. Hassan is the kite-runner of the ...
...Ali and Hassan come from the lower caste Hazaras and Amir although happy to play with the illiterate Hassan when he needs a friend at other times ignores him or makes fun of his inability to read or write. Throughout the story Hassan always remains the loyal friend and it is this loyalty that the story is about. Amir wants to win the respect and love of his father but feels that his father is disappointed in him because Amir is not good at sports ...

AJ26 26.04.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner One of the best books I have read all year and a truly wonderful story. The Kite Runner is a 2003 book written by Khaled Hosseini and was his debut novel. It tells the story of a young boy called Amir. He is growing up in 1970's Afghanistan and faces many trials and tribulations. At first he lives a fairly great looking life on the surface of it. His father is well off and they live in a big pink house away from all the run down ...
...Amir then resolves to win the local kite fighting tournament and hopefully prove he can be a man to his father. Hassan helps him in his quest but events after the tournament change their lives forever. When Russian forces invade Afghanistan Amir and his father flee to America and so the story continues with tales of their new lives there and Amir's eventual trip back to Afghanistan to face the demons of his past. I know we hear about Afghanistan ...

Spottydog11 21.08.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

I bought The Kite Runner in a 3 for 2 offer before I went on holiday in the summer, partly because I was interested in learning more about life in Afghanistan. However, I was somewhat sceptical about all the critical acclaim quoted in the book (as I always am!) and suspected it might be slightly heavy going for holiday reading, so I chose to read the other two books I had taken in stead. I finally got around to reading the book about a month ago, ...
...so long. It really is the most wonderful book I have read for a long time, and I have spent the last few weeks trying to convince everyone I know to read it. I thought maybe it was time to aim my campaign at a wider audience!! The book tells of the central character, Amir’s, struggle to win his father’s approval, and of the pain of living with the consequences that come of striving for it. The book goes back to 1970s Afghanistan, where a young Amir ...

dazy22 09.12.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

This is the debut novel by Khaled Hosseini, a Californian doctor who was born in Afghanistan and fled to the US seeking political asylum in 1980, thus you can be sure he knows he stuff regarding the early years of his lead character. The book is told from the perspective of Amir. Amir's mother died in childbirth and he grew up thinking that his father never quite forgave him for killing his mother. Amir's father, or Baba as he is referred to throughout ...
...family. Hassan is about the same age as Amir and also motherless as she run off just after Hassan was born as he was disfigured by a hare lip. Although Hassan had to look after Amir in the house, he was also his main playmate. Unable to read he enjoyed Amir reading stories to him and Amir loved the power this gave him as Amir was a coward and it was often Hassan who stood up for him in fights. This left Amir feeling inadequate that he was not the ...

Essexgirl2006 03.09.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

Perhaps unusually, I read The Kite Runner after I'd read A Thousand Splendid Suns, and even more unusually from what Ive read of other reviews, I found it to be a less satisfying read than A Thousand Splendid Suns. ~~So whats it about?~~ The story is about two boys growing up in Afghanistan before and during the outbreak of trouble. Amir lives a privileged life as the son of a wealthy businessman, and Hassan is his very loyal friend - and also the ...
...Hassan's company, does not reflect the same relationship back to Hassan, mainly because Hassan is a hazara and most Sh'ia Muslims in Afghanistans worked for the wealthy families. This story tells of how the boys spent their time growing up, the extent of Hassan's loyalty to his friend and the length to which Amir would go to impress his father, leading to an outcome that changes all of their lives forever. ~~My Opinion~~ Like A Thousand Splendid ...

burtybookworm 03.09.2008 (25.09.2008) · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner was written by Khaled Hosseini. It is based in Afghanistan, and traces the life of Amir, and his childhood friend Hassan. It is a story of redemption, and how to put right something that you did wrong in the past. INTRODUCTION: The novel starts in modern day, 2001, with Amir, the protagonist of the novel, talking about his past, and how it still haunts him. He says 'Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted ...
...on. From then on, the story flicks between past and present, staying in the past for the main section of the book. I will not give too much away about the storyline, as it will ruin the point of you reading it yourself, but nothing that happens is what is expected. MAIN CHARACTERS: Amir - protagonist, narrator of the novel, said to be born in 1963, in Kabul, who begins as a well-to-do boy in monarchical Afghanistan and later migrates to America ...

hkwilson 17.01.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner is a must read/listen book in my opinion. It is an extremely well written story that is rich in entertainment value as well as meaningful messages. Overview: The setting of the book is in Afghanistan. The story begins with the main character Amir having various childhood experiences. Amir is a Pashtun boy and his best friend, and the son of his servant, Hassan is a Hazara. At this point of the story there is an apparent division ...
...second class citizens in the region. Amir is the son of a wealthy and well respected man whose name is not revealed, but is called Baba throughout the book. Because of the success of his father, Amir constantly feels overshadowed. He spends much of the book trying to figure out what it means to be a man. (Spoiler) Baba was described in the book as a man that could fight a bear and win. Amir on the other hand is portrayed more as a timid awkward ...

ssj3gohan 25.10.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

...his son Hassan who was the same age as the main character Amir. His father had a guilty conscience for he had a legitimate son and an illegitimate son from his servant's wife. He tried to be hard on himself and it showed on the boy-Amir who wasnt shown any affection from his father, yet he can see some kindness when he speaks of the servant's son, the illegitimate son. The story teller Amir doesnt get to know about this secret till the last few ...
...when the father and Amir have to run away to America, and make a new life there. He gets married and the father dies. With each turning of the page there are the memories he has of Kabul and Afghanistan, of Hassan and how he betrayed him when he say 3 bullies attack him and the leader rape him. It is a beautiful story of a place torn by war and of individuals who are themselves are Afghanis yet they want to make their own rules and Islamic laws-the ...

zeta74 17.12.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini which was published in 2003 is an outstanding book. Interesting fact about this book is that the novel was said to be the first novel written in English by an Afghan writer. This give us the oppunitnity to experience culture and tradition that we never imagined before. This book is everything anyone wants from an adventure book and it's timelesss. The kite runner tells a story of stained relationship of a father ...
...its parallel to human behavior. The kite runner talks about potical conflict and social transformation of Afghanistan between the year 1970 to 2001. The author shows us with a vitual image of the past of this eastern country (Afghanistan) in a way that you will not think it just another history book for class. It really amazing how I got into really about the life of people from other country which helped me feel closer and able to understand other ...

Seminat 29.06.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner is one of those books that I've had many people recommend to me, so it was inevitable really that I was going to read it at some point! It probably isn't something I would have picked up if I saw it in a shop, which strengthens the saying of "don't judge a book by its cover"! It probably isn't a story I would have opted to read either, from the blurb, but I am glad that it was recommended to me as it was indeed a very enjoyable read. ...
...it gives an insight, also, into how important status is to the Afghans, but how these status issues were ultimately overcome by the main characters involved. It is a story of having loved and lost, more than once, but in the sense of families and friends as opposed to lovers. ...

laurajane24889 23.06.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini