My initial reaction after finishing any book is that I
desperately need to tell someone about my feelings toward the book. Most of the
time, I cannot give in to this urge to discuss the book because my mom can only
fake interest in a book she hasn’t read for so long. However, a few hours ago,
I finished reading Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite
Runner, and I remembered that I have a blog. In other words, I have a place
to have one-sided conversations about books.
No spoilers. I promise.
While I did not make it through the book dry-eyed, I also
did not find it completely depressing. The few specks of hope and happiness
that were sprinkled throughout the story were enough to distill the gravity and
melancholy of the novel’s subject matter. It was an eye-opening story
concerning the violence that occurred and continues in a war-torn Afghanistan,
a country that I knew next to nothing about before. The development of the main
character Amir is wonderfully done, but for me, it is Hasaan’s character that
makes the book so meaningful and touching. It was an altogether well-told story
with a satisfactory ending. I enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it.
On an unrelated note (but also kind of related), I made a
New Year’s resolution to read 50 books this year. Soon after making this
resolution, I realized that this meant reading one book per week. I regret this
resolution because I like to read big books and have a life. I mostly just want
to read more than the pathetic 24 books that I read last year. Unfortunately, I
already wrote my resolution down in my journal in pen, so The Kite Runner is book one. Forty-nine to go!
