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The Kite Runner | 
| Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Category: Book
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £10.19
You Save: £6.80 (40%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  382 reviews
Sales Rank: 21729
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Pages: 5
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0743501713
EAN: 9780743501712
ASIN: 0743501713
Publication Date: January 3, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling. The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park. --Lisa Alward, Amazon.ca
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| Customer Reviews: Read 377 more reviews...
 Good - but not that good! August 23, 2008
Just a short review as there are so many already - BUT .... I was a bit disappointed by The Kite Runner, not least because I read A Thousand Splendid Suns first and expected this book to be as good - it wasn't.
Another reviewer said of The Kite Runner 'It's an adequate story, filled with parts that are designed to make the reader cry.' I agree with this. I did find it a little predictable and it lacked something which A Thousand Splendid Suns had (which I can't quite put my finger on) but that's not to say that it's not well written as Hosseini does have an incredible gift as an author.
Perhaps I wasn't compelled to turn the pages as quickly as I expected - this is all too often the case though with massively over-hyped books. That said, I've read worse.
 Astonishing August 18, 2008
This book was amazing! One of the best books I have ever read! It's beautifully written with a bitter sweet ending that will leave you speechless and thinking!
Amazing - My first ever review August 16, 2008
I read a lot of books and this is my first review on Amazon (which shows how fab this book is!). This is one of my all time favourite books. It portrays the relationship between 2 boys in Afghanistan absolutely beautifully and is realistic which is why this book will have you in tears by the end of it. Much much better than the film. Takes you on a real journey that you will enjoy, with the ups and downs that life brings. Fantastic book!
 YEAH, IT'S GOOD COS IT'S SET IN AFGHANISTAN August 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Don't believe the hype: a highly predictable, very average tale that only got any attention due to its setting.
Not necessarily a bad book, just not the departure from the run-of-the-mill that others would lead you to believe.
don't believe the hype August 12, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
As usual with any over-hyped book, I put off reading this one for as long as possible. After months of rave reviews from not only professional critics but also friends and family, I finally gave in.
At the time I was just finishing off Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird', and I think my final view of 'The Kite Runner' may have been tarnished by my undying loyalty to what, in my opinion, is one of the greatest books ever written.
I read 'The Kite Runner' in one day. This, some might say, would suggest that it was such a good read I couldn't put it down.
True, I could not put the book down, but not because of the quality of the writing or story. I was desperately trying to find what exactly it was that people were raving about.
In my opinion, the book has acheived the success it has because it is a book written for the masses. It's an adequate story, filled with parts that are designed to make the reader cry.
I read an earlier review that mentioned that the author portrays the characters as either a saint or a villain, and that there is no in between. I must say I have to agree. There is no option for the reader to forge their own opinion of any of the characters.
I liked the story of Amir's relationship with his father and how it developed. I didn't like the cliche characters of the 'humble servants'. I liked the way the relationship between the two boys was portrayed. I was bored by the chapters of Amir as a grown man.
The dialogue is somewhat unbelievable and there are too many coincidences in the book that change it from being a good, realistic read, into a book written to be a film.
Don't get me wrong, this is far from the worst book I've ever read, hence the 3 star rating.
It may be a risky thing to say, but the book is as popular as it is because it is written for middle class white people who think that reading a book by an Afghan-American, cashing in on 9/11, about how horrendous life in Afghanistan is, will make them that little bit more cultured.
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