The Kite Runner

The book I read is named The Kite Runner and the name of the author is Khaled Hosseini . He also wrote the book name A Thousand Splendid Sun and it's about a girl afghanistan and she wants to live with her dad. The book I read and the other book that Khaled Hosseini wrote are the same cuz it's about sad stories in Afghanistan. The book is About a kid that did a bad thing to his best friend.

The story is about a kid name Amir and he is the son of Baba and he is a rich man. This story takes place in a peaceful city called Kabul. Baba has a servant and his name is Ali . Ali  has a son name Hassan. Amir and Hassan are best friends and they spend their days kite fighting. The most important conflict was when Amir won a kite fighting tournament and Amir and Hassan walked back home and they bumped into Assef and he bullied Amir and Hassan , Assef did something really bad to Hassan and Amir didn't do anything. Amir was thinking that if Hassan was gone his life would be easier. Amir grabbed his dad watch and money and put it in Hassan's mattresses. Baba found his stuff in Hassan's mattresses and he forgives him , but Ali knew that Amir put that their and they left anyways. Several years has passed and Amir lives in California ,he gets a letter from Ali to come back to Kabul . Amir goes back and found out that Hassan is his brother ! and Ali had died . He stayed there cuz he still had business to do ...

I like this book because it's a sad book and when you're reading this book you get mad that you even put down the book and just scream. I like this book because it's a crazy book and it his a dramatic book. This book was written for people who like a sad / dramatic / guilty / real life problems you will like it. If you like that type of book you should read it now ! If you don't save your time and choose another book.

Book Review by Eddie O.

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini is the author of The Kite Runner. He has also written two other books: And the Mountains Echoed and A Thousand Splendid Suns. All three books are set in Afghanistan at least for a while, and have an Afghan as the protagonist. All three are fiction, that tell incredible stories. 

The Kite Runner features many themes like the relationship of father and son, how friendship and the past intertwine, how religion and social classes can divide a people more than you'd believe. But the most important one is how your past will always come back someday, whether you like it or not. That the past always matters, and you can't change what happened in the past, but you can change how that affects your future.

Born in 1960's Afghanistan, Amir lives a happy life with his father Baba, and their family's servant Ali, and his son Hassan. Amir and Hassan become strong companions, though Amir is reluctant to call him "friend." Amir strives for his fathers attention, yet Baba doesn't seem to understand him and his love of literature so he feels that Baba gives more attention to Hassan, as if he were his son. 

On the winter of 1975, at the age of 12, him and Hassan enter a kite competition which is quite popular in Afghanistan. They strive for greatness, and succeed. He finally gains what he wants, his father's pride. Hassan goes to find the kite that they had defeated in the competition, and Amir finds him being raped by the bully/sociopath of their neighborhood, Assef. Amir hides, not doing anything to help Hassan due to his cowardice and runs, pretending he didn't see anything and act like everything is normal.  He begins avoiding Hassan out of guilt for what had happened, and how he didn't help. Hassan's father Ali finds out, and leaves Baba and Amir without telling Baba what had happened out of Hassan's begging not to. Baba and Amir later are forced to leave due to the war that had started in their country. They make the journey to America, where Baba begins to adjust to American culture and life, and Amir begins to fall in love with Soraya, an Afghan woman who works at the flea market besides him and his father. Baba gets diagnosed with a terminal illness, and later passes away. They get married, and life goes well for him. Later on, Baba's friend Rahim Khan, a close friend to Amir as well since Rahim always supported Amir with his writing dreams. He asks Amir to visit him. When Amir arrives, he learns that Hassan had lived his life and had a wife and son. Though they had later been killed, Rahim has one request. Find Hassan's son Sohrab, and bring him back to somewhere safe. This part of the book ties in how Afghanistan had changed when the Taliban were put in power, and what it had done to it's people.

I recommend this book to anyone who can handle a lengthy book that features multiple, multiple details. This book offers many details that come up in several different parts which connects the entire story, not just as a series of events; but as a true novel should connect. This book is intriguing because it creates connections to the characters involved as it searches for sympathy with the reader and shows the similarities and differences cultures have. This book may connect to the other books Khaled has written, as they all show Afghanistan but just from different perspectives. It could also connect to anyone interested in stories of pain and forgiveness.

Book Review by Thomas D.

The Kite Runner

I read the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini who has also written A Thousand Splendid Suns. These books are both staged in the middle east and are set during war times. The Kite Runner is a very sad and almost upsetting novel. Two boys in Afghanistan, Hassan and Amir are best friends as Hassan’s father, Ali is a servant to Amir’s family. Ali and Hassan are Hazaras, a minority in the Afghanistan culture. This causes problems within Amir and Hassan’s friendship when Hassan gets ridiculed for being a Hazara, and Amir gets ridiculed for being friends with a Hazara. Conflict also arises between Amir and his father Baba as Baba believes Amir is weak and often compliments Hassan more than Amir. This causes Amir to enter a kite flying festival in order to win his father’s affection. Amir surprisingly wins the kite running festival and sends Hassan off to retrieve the fallen kite. While Hassan does so he gets raped by a neighborhood bully while others watch, Amir included. This causes some of the biggest tension between Amir and Hassan throughout the entire book. Amir’s lack of aid to Hassan makes their friendship awkward. Amir’s father Baba begins to again take pride in Hassan rather than Amir which again makes Amir feel bad about himself. Amir then sets up Hassan and says he has stolen money from him. Hassan being a loyal friend agrees to the thievery and Baba banishes Hassan and Ali from the house. During this the boys are apart a war breaks out in Afghanistan. Baba and Amir flee to America and Baba’s fortune is lost by doing so. Baba now has to work in a gas station and becomes very sick contracting cancer. As all of this is happening Hassan has married and had a child in Baba and Amir’s old home. Many years later Amir gets a phone call from Baba’s old friend that Amir and his wife have been killed by the Taliban and it is only right for Amir to save their son as he tells Amir that Amir and Hassan are half brothers and that Baba had an affair with Ali’s wife. Amir decides to go back to Afghanistan only to find Hassan’s son captured by a member of the Taliban. We later find out this Taliban member is Assef, the bully who raped Hassan years before. Amir and Assef battle for Amir’s son’s life and to avenge Hassan. Amir still being smaller than Assef has no chance but luckily Amir’s son shoots Assef in the eye with a slingshot granting their escape. Amir wants to get his nephew out of Afghanistan but without proof of Hassan and his wife’s death he is not able to adopt him. Amir had earlier promised not to put his nephew back in an orphanage when he indeed has to while he waits on being granted custody of the boy. Amir’s nephew loses trust in Amir after this and tries to commit suicide. Amir visits his nephew and decides to take him to the kite running festival. Here they bond over their love for Hassan.

I would recommend this book to those with strong stomachs. Books with physical or emotional pain inflicted on those of a different race or culture are hard for me to read as I relate to them to slavery and constantly think of slavery of my people. I would definitely recommend this book to others as the conflicts that arise keep you interested as I get very bored while reading books. There is no “ slow” part to this book as it climaxes to the end. I would highly recommend it to those looking for a book to keep them intrigued.

Book Review by Sydney S.

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini is the author of the famous novel published in 2003, The Kite Runner. Hossein is an Afghan-American novelist, born on 1965. Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan but  when he was 15 the family moved to US and became citizens.

He write three novels and all three became bestsellers. His first novel published was "The Kite Runner"  and after followed by "A Thousand Splendid Suns." His last book "And the Mountains Echoed" was published last year. All three novels are fiction novels, that tells inspiring life changing stories. The writing style of the author, make awake your feelings. With this book I laughed and I cried.

The relationship between father and son, the importance of friendship, the past,  identity, the search for forgiveness, different social classes, religion, cultures, patriotism and citizenship are some of the most important themes in the Kite Runner. With all this ingredients it already seemed that it would be great; but what I found inside this book was better, much better.

Everything happen in the winter of 1975 in . Amir, the narrator and Hassar are two kids around 12 years. They are best friend and they been together forever. Amir is the son of baba, a rich business man. His mom dies when he born, so he spend most of his life with baba. he doesn't understand his son, who loves the literature and he gives more attention to Hassan.

But the day that in Kabul it gives rise a Kites competition. In Afghanistan the kites are really popular, so Amir and Hassan decided to sign in. This day the kids won the competition, and for first time in a long time Amir see his father proud of him.

Hassan went to take the trophy but when Amir realizes that he is taking a long time, he decides when to find out what is happening. Is at that moment when he find that Assef, a guy who always goes around Hassan, is raping him. Amir get afraid so he decides to leaves and do like if he doesn't see anything.

Later, Amir acts like if he doesn't know anything, even the next weeks he tries not be close to Hassan. Then a couple weeks after the kids won the trophy, baba's celebrate a birthday party for his son and gives to him a clock.

This clock disappears and is finally found in Hassan house. Hassan swear that he doesn't did anything, and it's true because Amir put the clock in Hassan house. Then Hassan dad decides to leave even Baba's prays them not to leave.

After Ali and Hassan leave. Baba and Amir should to leave too because the war just started and they should find a safe place. Finally they get to leave Afghanistan and go to America. There Baba's find  job and Amir graduates from High School.

Is there in America, when he is helping his dad in the job, he meet Soraya, with who he falls in love. At the first moment Soraya's dad is not 100% agree but they keep going with the relation. But baba get sick of cancer, so Amir ask the hand to Soraya´s dad and he accept.

They get married and they went to live together and try to created a family. Baba's died two weeks after the wedding.

And then is when Amir receives the calling from Rahim Kan, his dad friend. Rehim invite him to visit him in Afghanistan and he accept. When Amir meet Rahim there, this one tell him that Hassan is actually Baba´s soon. What happened was that Ali couldn't had kids, so Baba's had sexual relations with Hassan mom for give them a kid.

The other surprise that Rahim gives to Amir is that Hassan is death. he was  accused  for live in a house that wasn't his and he refused to leave, so the police kill him and his wife leaving his son orphan. Rahim asked Amir go to look for him and he finally went.

They arrived to the house where Amir son, Sohrab, supposedly lived but when arrive there the kid wasn't there. They explained that every moth a general comes and take some kids and this month the unfortunate was Soharab. They discovered that the general was Assef, who rape Hassan the day that everything changed. Amir talk with him and ask for Soharh. Assef told to Amir that they should fight and if Amir will won, he can bring Soharah with him. When Amir was almost lossing, Soharah hit Assef and then Soharah and Amir escape.

At the final of the book, Amir decides bring Soharah to USA with him, and give a new life. For Soharah was really hard to integrated to the new culture.

I started this book with some questions that I would like, one of the reasons was because I thought that an Afghan writer it was pretty far of my literary taste. But the prejudices disappears after the first ten pages. The story is gripping and shocking and reveals reality of the human heart.  For me this book became into one of that books that are unforgettable.

Sincerely I recommend to everyone to read this book, you will not regret. 

Book Review by Claudia P-M.

The Kite Runner

The book, The Kite Runner, is written by Khaled Hosseini. Hosseini authored of a few other works (A ThousandSplendid Suns, And The Mountains Echoed, among others) that I’m not necessarily familiar with. The Kite Runner follows the lives of two boys originating from Afghanistan and the troubles they encounter. An overarching theme lies within; intolerable human behavior and its hardly futile consequences: the very definition of life itself as we’ve unfortunately come to know it.

The Afghanistan people are divided up into two categories, determined simply by the shape of their nose: one is a slave, one is a slave owner. The specific occurrence of slave vs. slave owner evident in the book is Hassan and Amir, respectively. The book then goes on to describe a tragedy that scars Amir for life, and in turn, attempts to drive everything, including Hassan (who also happens to be his best friend), away. Later in Amir’s life, now husband of Farzana and citizen of America, a situation back at Afghanistan is brought to his attention. This prompts his return to both country and struggles associated with his past. Horrified by the news given to him by Rahim Khan, friend of his now deceased father, Amir attempts to free a child, Sohrab, from the Taliban.

Reading this book is not recommended as it is explicatory in both content and mood. It gives the reader a sort of disgusted mood throughout the entire story and one is unable to determine whether or not the protagonist is in fact a protagonist. While quality of the writing is redeeming, imagery presented is not comforting in any way shape or form.

Book Review by Talen F.

The Kite Runner

For my independent book project I read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Khaled Hosseini has also written 2 other books A ThousandSplendid Suns, And the Mountain Echoed.  I haven’t read all of these books, but the Kite Runner spent 101 weeks on the best seller list. The other two of his books were also on the best seller list just not as long as The Kite Runner. A theme I saw that kept reoccurring was the tension between Amir and his father. This to me was the biggest theme because all Amir has in life is his father.

In the first chapters of The Kite Runner, Amir and the servant’s son Hassan play together all the time. One day they are playing and this bully named Assef threatens them. Hassan toughens up and takes his slingshot and shot it at Assef making the bully leave them alone. The book then skips to the kite race. All the kids loved the kite races, after your kite had fallen down you would have to go retrieve it. Hassan went to retrieve Amir and his kite.  Hassan was taking a while so Amir went to go look for him, and discovered Hassan helpless in an alley. Amir decided not to say anything about seeing him. Amir felt that Hassan was in danger so he stashed some of babas watches under Hassans pillows and says he stole them. Amir did this to protect his friend. The book then talks about how his country becomes a war-zone so Baba and Amir leave to Pakistan for 2 years and then to California. When in California Amir Meets a beautiful girl named Farzana they end up getting Married about a month later Baba dies from lung cancer. Rahim wants Amir to go back to his country because he has some tragic news. When Amir gets there, Rahim tells him Hassan and his wife were shot and killed. Their son Sohrab was left in an orphanage. Amir looks around everywhere for Sohrab. Amir finally finds him and takes him back to America with him.

I would recommend this book to everyone. This story is so inspiring and tragic, it needs to be heard. When I started reading it I thought it was just going to be a story about two little boys who were friends. As I started reading more of the story I was hooked. I was so amazed at how this story turned from a story of friendship to a story about a war, a fight for life, and freedom. This story was well written and defiantly one of the best books I have ever read. I guarantee you would not regret reading a story just so beautiful and horrific. Khaled Hosseini did an amazing job with The Kite Runner and I cannot wait to read the other two books he has written.

Book Review by Amber M.

The Kite Runner

In 2003 Khaled Hosseini published The Kite Runner. A few years later it became a best seller in the United States. The readers enjoyed reading Khaled’s personal narrative about Afghanistan culture and tradition, such as Kite Fighting in the Winter. In the end of the book kite flying and kite runners was a symbolic way of how it troubled a friendship of two Afghan boys Khaled, who is known as Amir in the book and Hassan, Amir’s kite runner, and loyal childhood best friend. The theme of this book is, there is a way to be good again because in the end twenty-six years later while one had been lost, another friendship was created and this time Amir is the Kite Runner.

               

The Kite Runner starts off in the setting of Afghanistan where Amir, the protagonist and his well respected father Baba lived in a luxurious mansion. They had two servants Ali and his son Hassan, who are Hazara, a different ethnic minority then Amir who is Pashtun. The book takes us through the life of Amir from his childhood to his Adulthood. While reading, readers see the difficult times between his father’s approval and problems. Not only that but the problems between his friendship with Hassan. Amir’s story shows readers how you should never give up, friendship, should never die and how you should always stay loyal no matter how the circumstances get. But out of all the trouble Amir has been in, Rahim Khan, Babas close friend and a man that Amir admired, calls Amir about twenty years later after the trouble. He tells Amir, “ There is a way to be good again.” (Rahim Khan, 192)

               

I highly recommend everyone to read this book. It has become one of my favorite books. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini had a powerful grip on my focus from the beginning until the end. It had a simultaneously heart wrecking and harm warming story with an emotionally compelling plot. Hosseini’s language was very beautifully detailed and different from any personal narratives that I have ever read, and it made me feel as if I was there with him through his struggles, gains and losses.

Book Review by Dalena N.

The Kite Runner

I have just finished reading the book, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Khaled Hosseini, is an Afghan man who was raised in America. He is also the author of A Thousand Splendid Suns, and And the Mountains Echoed. This story is about two young boys, one wealthy and one the son of his fathers servant, and the struggles they went through growing up in Afghanistan before the invasion of the Taliban. You will finish this book learning a lesson, which is that time can never be given back.

           

This novel is about two young boys, Amir and Hassan. Amir is the son of a well respected Afghan man and Hassan is the son of their Hazara servant. Amir has always yearned for a relationship with his father and throughout the story you will see all that he is willing to do to make his dad proud. Amir often teases Hassan to tests his loyalty to him and also because he was never able to go to school and get an education, but Hassan on the other hand sees Amir as family and would do anything for him. “For you a thousand times over”, Hassan had said to Amir on the day of the kite running tournament. As the boys go through a situation it begins to break their two worlds apart more then they would have ever imagined. Years pass within the story and Amir has to face what he’s been avoiding for the past two dozen years. As he goes through this journey he learns secrets to his past that will change his life forever and make him learn the true meaning to life.

           

I would recommend this book to everybody. It has a great meaning and life lesson within it. There’s so many different twist and turns you will stay locked to it for hours. The story also gives you a brief insight into the history of Afghanistan and its people and what they went through during this time. It’s a great story for the relationship of a boy and his father, loyalty, war, friendship, and the ever lasting love between two friends.  

            

Book Review by Rylee S.