The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

“For you, a thousand times over,” Hassan answered when his best friend Amir asked him if he would eat dirt if Amir asked him to.

This is a story of two generations of two boys, best friends, who got separated from each other at the time of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. Two boys. And their two fathers. Amir and his father ended up living in America, while Ali and Hassan were left in war-torn Afghanistan. The circumstance upon which they were separated from each other is difficult to describe without spoiling the story. Just know that there’s going to be a search to reunite. And with it, the search for atonement, and salvation.

This is one of the best novels I’ve read in years. Afghanistan, the country I only heard about or seen in TV’s when the US retaliated from the 9/11/2001 attacks on the twin towers of NY’s World Trade Center and several other locations in the US, was vividly described. I could almost see the streets, hear its noise and chatters, and smell the fragrance and the stench as Amir described his life and his country then and now. I could see Amir and Hassan run up the hill and watch over their village (it reminded me of those times when my friends and I would climb up a hill and watch our village below, fascinated at how organized the houses are in the subdivisions, and the vastness of the ocean beside it). But more than their country, the two boys themselves, along with their friendship and their fathers’ friendship, were expertly characterized by Hosseini. Ten to twenty pages on and I found myself caring for the book’s main characters. From the back cover of the book I gathered that an invasion was going to do something to the lives of the characters and I found myself anxious to read on the circumstance of the two best friends’ separation, and the eventual search to reunite.

I’d definitely recommend this book to my friends. Last week a colleague told me that she wanted to read a book over the long weekend (3-day weekend due to public holiday) and asked me for a recommendation. I bought several books since moving to Cebu, but I had a hard time recommending one because I liked them all equally and none of them really stood out from the rest (all of what I would readily recommend I left in my home city, Cagayan de Oro). She wouldn’t admit it, but she leans towards fantasy so I ended up lending her my copy of “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman. I had a backup fantasy recommendation, “The Goose Girl” by Shannon Hale, but she wanted to borrow just one book. Anyway, had I already read “The Kite Runner” when she asked for a recommendation, I definitely would have recommended it. A thousand times over, even though it isn’t fantasy.