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Book Review By David Loftus
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Amir, the son of a successful Pashtun businessman, lives a comfortable life in Kabul, Afghanistan in the early 1970s. His best friend is Hassan, a year younger and the son of a servant, who is like a brother to Amir but still a member of the despised Hazara minority (descendants of the Mongols and Shi'a Muslims). The boys' favorite sport is kite fighting, which takes place every winter. Amir competes in the contest where boys use razor-sharp kite lines to sever one another's lines, and Hassan is the best in the city at running and retrieving fallen kites.

The two boys reach a turning point in 1975 when the neighborhood bully Assef savages Hassan (after the servant boy had defended Amir from the bullies) and Amir does nothing. The guilt for that betrayal, as well as Amir's troubled relationship with his father Baba, will rule his life for the next 20 years.

The Russian army invades Afghanistan and drives Amir's family over the border to Pakistan. Eventually they make their way to Fremont, California to make a new life. But in December of 2001 a phone call out of the past summons Amir back to Pakistan, and then Kabul itself, now under the crushing rule of the Taliban, to discover long-buried secrets and make amends with his guilty conscience.


Plot & Themes
Tone of book? - thoughtful
Time/era of story - 1980's-1999
Kids growing up/acting up? Yes
Ethnic/Regional/Religion
Other aspects:
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Ethnic/regional/gender life Yes

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status:
Age: - 20's-30's
Ethnicity/Nationality

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 20's-30's
Profession/status:
How sensitive is this character?
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 6 ()
United States Yes
The US: - California
Asia/Pacific Yes
Asian country: - The 'stans

Writing Style
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - rape/molest
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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