The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

***** (5/5)

Fiction

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Book Cover Synopsis:

Over five years on the New York Times bestseller list, and published in 42 different languages.

Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable, beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan nonetheless grow up in different worlds: Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir’s father’s servant, is a Hazara, a member of the ethnically shunned minority. Their intwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them. When the Soviets invade and Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave behind the memory of Hassan behind him.

The Kite Runner is a novel about friendships, betrayal, and the price of loyalty. It is about the bonds between fathers and sons, and the power of their lies. Written against a history that has not been told in fiction before, The Kite Runner describes the rich culture and beauty of a land in the process of being destroyed. But with the devastation, Khaled Hosseini also gives us hope: through the novel’s faith in the power of reading and storytelling, and in the possibilities he shows for redemption.

Why I loved The Kite Runner:

Khaled Hosseini is my favourite writer. I was reading The Kite Runner while on holiday in Cambodia and I spent all the time I wasn’t at Angkor Watt reading! It has been a long time since I read it, but it has stayed in my memory as one of my favourite books. I will read it again soon and review it properly. But there’s no need to wait for that review, just read The Kite Runner.

Hosseini’s next book A Thousand Splendid Suns is equally riveting.

x Julie

Book Reviews

- Reading Like Rabbits

by Khaled Hosseini

***** (5/5)

Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book cover synopsis:

After more than 189 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today. Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman’s love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.

Why I loved A Thousand Splendid Suns:

As I said in my short review on The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini is my favourite author. He evokes Afghanistan and the inner lives of its people beautifully with his amazing ability to taking readers on an unforgettable journey. It’s also been a long time since I’ve read this book, but The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns both vie for 1st place as my all-time favourite novel.

x Julie

Book Reviews

- Reading Like Rabbits