Review #9: ALEX Award winner or Adult "Market" Author Popular with Teens

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead, 2003. Print.

Annotation: A young man is haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons that drive his quest for forgiveness, bringing him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule.
Justification for Nomination: 

 Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner is an experience filled with genuine plot twist and characters that defy human life. This powerful story shows the fragile relationship between fathers and sons, humans and their gods, men and their countries. Loyalty and blood are the ties that bind their stories into one of the most emotional, touching and astonishing books of all time.

Hosseini has this distinctive ability to lyrically describe the beauty and violence of the country, Afghanistan, making the setting come alive. You can hear the yells of street vendors as main characters Amir and Hassan run through the streets, you can smell the kebabs as they are grilled in the summer heat and you can feel the hot sun as it scorches young Amir’s back.  The author’s beautiful words propel the story and setting, giving you a taste of Afghanistan without going there.

Most books have a hard time capturing human characteristics, but Hosseini does a great job of capturing the character of Amir. You travel with him as he discovers himself and atones for his past. Looking at the character you are drawn to his inner monologues about his guilty that he carries everywhere with him, which all human beings can attest too.  You become so attached to the character that in the end you forget that you are reading fiction instead of his personal memoir.

The Kite Runner is a fast paced fictitious story that will have readers flipping each page with eagerness. It has the composition of a classic work of literature with its very well developed characters and story that harbors depth and intrigue. The book is heightened with graphic violence that draws out many emotions including empathy and sadness. The book is heartbreaking, divine, depressing, uplifting, and inspiring. It's everything you need in a good YA book. It makes you feel, think, and wonder about the human mind.

Genre Category: Science Fiction