The Kite Runner- Review by Paul Engomites

The #1 New York Times bestseller The Kite Runner was published by Khaled Hosseini on August 3rd 2003, at the time this extraordinary book was like no other, many different reviews, and critiques described this book as “powerful…haunting” “moving and unexpected” “evocative and genuine” The Kite Runner fulfills the promise of fiction and has many different themes and genres such as love, honor, guilt, fear even redemption. The themes are “universal” familial relationships, particularly father and son, the price of disloyalty, the inhumanity of a rigid class system and the horrific realities of war. The novel both transforms the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces. The mood and tone change unpredictably and there are many different ones. For instance it is very thoughtful, tragic, filled with despair and very sad but at other times it is uplifting and hopeful. The author effectively employs literary devices accurately as well as characterization to define the characters. (Amir and Hassan) I personally could not connect with the book, because it was based on a cold blooded war, and hope not to in the future. I would definitely recommend this book to older people around the age groups of 20+ because Khaled Hosseini’s writing style is tricky and might not be understandable to some, but otherwise reading this book was a great use of time.