The Kite Runner
 | Riverhead Trade, 2004, Paperback Customer Rating: 2752 reviews Recommend |
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- ISBN13: 9781594480003
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
The timely and critically acclaimed debut novel that's becoming a word-of-mouth phenomenon...
In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil — in this case, Afghanistan — while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on his first try.
The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.")
Some of the plot's turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America's collective consciousness ("people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz"), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon. — Gisele Toueg
Title: The Kite Runner
Sales Rank: 165 in Books
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Riverhead Trade, Later Printing edition, 2004-04-27, Paperback, 400 pages, ISBN: 1594480001
Package Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches, 0.45 pounds
- a must read
- This is one of my all time favorite books, right along with The Poisonwood Bible. The story is compelling, intense and masterfully written. I cried more reading this book than any other I can remember. It pulled me in and stayed with me for months. Bravo!… More reviews
- A page turner that stays within you for a long time.
- I usually am a 'light' reader, that is Evanovich, Grafton, Patterson..good books but pass quickly. A Pakastani friend gave me her book to read. I was hesitant and read the first couple of pages a few times, but then when I really started reading The Kite Runner I couldn't put it down. The story has stayed within me for what I imagine will be quite a time.… More reviews
- Great book
- I had a hard time putting this down (and sometimes a hard time picking it back up, due to the subject matter). I tend to read fun books, but this was a great book to get me outside of my reading comfort zone. Really well written. I read it well before the movie came out and felt the movie didn't even come close to invoking… More reviews
- The brutal sexual exploitation of one boy by another boy
- This book was very favorably reviewed by the literary press. I found it sophomoric. The author relies on the old, old hack formula of trying to shock his readers to the extent that they will consider his work avant-garde 'literature.' Too bad, because the story could have offered interesting insights into another culture.
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- Horrible
- This may very possibly be the biggest disappointment. I expected the book to be brand new. It was very obviously read before. Not only was the binding already in bad condition, but the seller's name or some other name was already in the book cover. The seller obviously could not make it any more obvious that he had already used… More reviews
