The Kite Runner

I now know what they mean when they say, "Don't judge a book by its cover." I'm going to be honest and tell you that when I first looked at this book I thought it was going to suck worse than the Detroit Lions. However, after reading the first 80pages, I found myself not being able to put it down. The first couple chapters started slow, and I will admit I was timid on going further, but I liked how the author, Khaled Hosseini, kind of fish-hooked me back in. He would throw in little tidbits that I knew were forshadowing future events. It's these sentences that kept me reading. I wanted to see what was going to go down. Another thing Hosseini did was describe objects and people very well. I felt I could get a good picture of what Hassan and Ali looked like from his description. He's very good at giving just enough detail to get a picture, but not giving too much to where you mentally drown. I also liked how it was an easy read. Aside from the occasional culture talk, I found I understood almost everything that was being said and going on.

The Kite Runner so far is a very intense book. It has a lot of vivid events going on, many of which have caught me by surprise. One such event is when Hassan is raped. I thought I had misread this passage at first so I read it again to fully understand. I was very saddened by this scene because Hassan's innocence was taken from him for doing nothing wrong. It upset me greatly. I did not like it how Amir just stood there and didn't help. However, I understand why he didn't and couldn't. These boys are 12 years old and they are going through all these intense adult situations? Wow. I'm sure it will take me awhile to shake this scene off.

Overall, I have no complaints thus far. I feel this book is very well written and easy enough to understand. One question I have is whether or not Hosseini took some of the events from his life and incorporated them into this book? If he did I feel sorry for him.