Book Review - Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Dear reader, this book that I just finished reading is a phenomenal read and I highly suggest it. Not only did it open my eyes to what kind of life the Afghani’s had to live when they were being over taken by the Taliban but also what simple pleasures in life were for them. The book is Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. It’s about a father and son who are closely related to their servants, who are also a father and son. Later in the book you find out more about the relations and just how closely they are related. The two boys, even though they are in different levels within the society hierarchy, often play together and spend time together, although when the one son is with his friends, he doesn’t ask his servant friend to join them. The two boys form a sort of brother-ship and become very close, they spend most of their time together doing various things. One thing I did not realize is that flying kites is almost like a major sport in Afghanistan. They have actual kite battles and then the kids run to catch the kites. The person who owns the last kite that is flying and is able to catch the opponents kite they just beat is known as a champion throughout the entire town. The kites are hand made and are even equipped with a glass/tar string which is used to cut the opponents kites loose. It really was quite amazing how in depth the kite running and flying was. It would be like hockey or baseball to Americans and Canadians. The two boys form a team and work together to win the kite tournament and the servant boy runs the kite for the main character. While running the kite for him, the servant boy seems to go missing and cannot be found by anyone. The main character ends up trying to find his servant friend and ends up being witness to his friend being brutally raped and beaten by the town bully and 2 of his lackeys. This is a major part of the story because the main character often refers back to it and considers it a personal flaw that instead of helping his servant friend out he chose to run to safety. For many years he wonders if the servant boy even saw him there watching the terrible incident. Some years later the main character and his father choose to leave Afghanistan as it is becoming troubled, people being beaten in the streets, often killed even. His father makes the decision to take his son and leave to go to America where it is much safer and make a life for themselves there. Many years later the main character gets a call from his father’s best friend saying that he must return to Afghanistan for reasons he will tell him when they meet. When the main character and the father’s best friend meet, he is told that him and the servant boy were actually half brothers because the servant boy’s father was infertile and unable to have children so as a service to him the father gave the servant father a son, thus making the main character and his servant boy friend half brothers. The reason the main character was summoned back to Afghanistan is that his half brother had a son and now the son is in an orphanage because both his parents were shot in the street by a cruel Taliban soldier. The story goes into detail about the difficulties the main character has trying to find his nephew and the struggles he runs into trying to save said nephew. The book talks a lot about the importance of family and how the main character can try and reclaim his honour since the half brother saw him watching the rape and he did nothing. The way he can reclaim the honour is to rescue the boy from the same turmoil that his father incurred and bring him to safety, even if that means bringing him home with him to America. The story is absolutely fabulous and yet again it was another story that truly opened my eyes to a world out there that I don’t hardly know about. Not only was it informative but I ended up feeling the pain and sadness the characters actually felt because I really got into the story. Definitely an amazing read and I definitely suggest it to anyone, not only to know about what it is like in a different country but the book is an amazing story, and the ending is truly fitting.