The Kite Runner

Title: The Kite Runner

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Pages: 372

Genre: Fiction

Grade: A-

Synopsis: Amir and his wealthy father, Baba, live in a beautiful house in Kabul, Afghanistan.  Their servants and lifelong friends Hassan and Ali live in a small house on the same property.  Amir and Hassan do everything together with Amir always trying to gain his father's love and adoration.  Hassan, being Amir's servant, is one of the most loyal and likeable character in all literature,  One of the boys' favorite things to do is to fly kites in the winter.  After one of the city's big kite running competitions, an unspeakable event comes between Amir and Hassan.  An event that would haunt Amir for the rest of his life.

My Review: There are very few books that you just love and hate.  The loyalty and unwavering love of Hassan and his father are inspiring and the friendship between the two boys (Amir and Hassan) is incredible.  The terrors that haunt Amir as he and his father flee the Russian occupation of Afghanistan are heartbreaking.  Amir is very likeable but some of the things he does and the decisions he makes tear you apart.  This is a powerful book about growing up in Afghanistan before all of the wars and occupations.

Disclaimer: The book has some violence and a bit of foul language and sex.  Not recommended for children.

From the Book: "(p. 52) Except that wasn't all. The real fun began when a kite was cut. That was where the kite runners came in, those kids who chased the windblown kite drifting through the neighborhoods until it came spiraling down in a field, dropping in someone's yard, on a tree or a rooftop. The chase got pretty fierce; hordes of kite runners swarmed the streets, shoved past each other like those people from Spain I'd read about once, the ones who ran from the bulls. One year a neighborhood kid climbed a pine tree for a kite. A branch snapped under his weight and he fell thirty feet. Broke his back and never walked again. But he fell with the kite still in his hands. And when a kite runner has his hands on a kite, no one could take it from him. That wasn't a rule. That was a custom."

"(p. 128) I wanted to tell them that, in Kabul, we snapped a tree branch and used it as a credit card. Hassan and I would take the wooden stick to the bread maker. He'd carve notches on our stick with his knife, one notch for each loaf of naan he'd pull for us from the tandoor's roaring flames. At the end of the month, my father paid him for the number of notches on the stick. That was it. No questions. No ID."

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Title: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Author: Mark Haddon

Pages: 226

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Grade: A- (It would have been an A if the language had been better)

Synopsis: Christopher John Francis Boone is an autistic kid that sees and hears everything very literally. He is detached from his emotions which makes it difficult for him to relate to people and understand their intentions. He is very analytical and mathematical and in my opinion a genius. This is a book that he writes about the neighbors dog that is murdered in the middle of the night with a pitchfork.

My Review: I really, really liked this book. It was difficult to put down and I really felt that I was seeing things from Christopher's autistic perspective. You are able to foresee things before Christopher realizes just what is going on and it is saddening to see how difficult it is for him to grasp reality. Almost everything to him comes down to numbers or a mathematical problem. In fact, most of life can be explained by one mathematical relation or another. This book is funny, sad and enlightening of the plight of the autistic and how they are treated.

Disclaimer: This book was chosen for the inaugural Salt Lake City Reads city-wide book club a couple of years ago. There was a firestorm of anger towards Rocky Anderson because the book was said to be "suitable for all ages" (which is true if you don't mind your child reading the f-word around a dozen times). This book takes place in England which helps to explain the type of profanity that is found in the book. I wouldn't call it vulgar or lewd, but I would call it profane.

From the Book: "(Back cover, quote by Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha) I have never read anything quite like Mark Haddon's funny and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable. I advise you to buy two copies; you won't want to lend yours out."

"(p. 7) He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly. They were stacking up in my head like loaves in the factory where Uncle Terry works. The factory is a bakery and he operates the slicing machines. And sometimes a slicer is not working fast enough but the bread keeps coming and there is a blockage. I sometimes think of my mind as a machine, but not always as a bread-slicing machine. It makes it easier to explain to other people what is going on inside it."