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  • I listened to the audio version of this novel shortly after I finished in paperback. I loved learning the pronunciations of some of the words. It was a wonderful audiobook, although it made me uncomfortable at times becasue of the graphicness of the scenes.

    

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• ― SheReads said on Mar 5, 2007 about the Audio CD edition| Add your feedback

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  • This powerful first novel...tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian fo ... Continue

    This powerful first novel...tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces. But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in The Kite Runner, are only a part of this story. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence - forces that continue to threaten them today.

    

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• ― meganzing said on Dec 14, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • Riveting...

  • i haven't read any novels for some time and when i started reading this book, i just couldn't put it down. i was deeply moved by what happened to the characters and the author has an uncanny ability to tell stories in such a way that's incredibly vivid and inviting. Great book, and i can't wait to s ... Continue

    i haven't read any novels for some time and when i started reading this book, i just couldn't put it down. i was deeply moved by what happened to the characters and the author has an uncanny ability to tell stories in such a way that's incredibly vivid and inviting. Great book, and i can't wait to see the movie this Fall.

    

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• ― Faithful Father said on Aug 7, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • Beautifully written, powerful and compelling throughout, and at times written with such frank brutality some passages will be difficult to get through. But the book had a major flaw for me - the protagonist spends most of the book as weak character and the reader spends most of the book waiting for ... Continue

    Beautifully written, powerful and compelling throughout, and at times written with such frank brutality some passages will be difficult to get through. But the book had a major flaw for me - the protagonist spends most of the book as weak character and the reader spends most of the book waiting for him to "man up." If he had, many of the horrible things that happen in the book could have been avoided completely. And the last 100 pages or so seems to be an unnecessary if-it-can-go-wrong-it-will-go- wrong nightmare. (Which is probably why, after breezing through the book the last bit took me a month and a half to get through.)

    

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• ― Cuzzin Todd said on Jun 1, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • Intense read.

    

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• ― SaraA said on May 18, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • I thought this book seriously had no point at all. I got nothing from it, didn't care about any of the characters, and learning next to nothing about Afghanistan. Really really dull book. I am truly shocked by any good reviews on this book.

    

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• ― Deanna Kyre said on Mar 28, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifices, their lies.

The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvases of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject-the devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.

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