11. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

So I guess this is my first ‘popular’ book of the year. Highly recommended by many, I’ve been meaning to read this for quite a while. I finally bought it and started reading, but immediately I found it wasn’t the ‘top novel’ I’d been told about. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good read, an interesting subject matter and definitely makes you think – but it just isn’t as good as everybody has made it out to be. I was expecting another Pride and Prejudice.

One little thing throughout it that annoys is that it keeps trying to teach the reader Farsi – the language spoken by the characters – but just the key words. It occurs throughout the book and it really gets to me, for no particular reason. It always does it in the same way, repeating the English just after it and you begin to see it coming by the end.

I don’t see it is as a bad story, in fact I find it fascinating how the cultures interact and the relationship of the two young boys. It’s also interesting to see the point of view of Afghans in America, and how little changes after they’ve moved with regard to interacting and the social rules.

It was relatively easy to read, but not annoyingly so. It was more the fact I needed to know what happened and kept reading! I am probably being too hard on it, but I did actually enjoy reading it (although it is heartbreaking at times) and will probably re-read in the future. Now though, I really would like to see the movie and how it converted.