The Kite Runner

I finally finished The Kite Runner! It was so so so good! I highly recommend it. It is a story about friendship, growing up, and overcoming your past. It has many themes in it, such as ethnic tension, loyalty, betrayal, coming of age, courage, forgiveness, guilt, the love between father and son, the effects of war, religion, and redemption. The book didn't end exactly how I wanted it to, much like most things in life, but it did have a good ending. I have never been so moved by a book before. It dragged me around emotionally, tossing me from happy to sad and everything in between. This is a book that I'm probably going to end up reading again (and that never happens). It was so unlike anything I had ever read before. It was actually written well too, unlike most teenage girls novels, cough cough *Twilight*.

Excerpt representing the theme of religion:
I throw my makeshift jai-namaz, my prayer rug, on the floor and I get on my knees, lower my forehead to the ground, my tears soaking through the sheet. I bow to the west. Then I remember that I haven't prayed for over fifteen years. I have long forgotten the words. But it doesn't matter, I will utter those few words I still remember: La illaha il Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger. I see now that Baba was wrong, there is a God, there always had been. I see Him here, in the eyes of the people in this corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find him.

I fell in love with this excerpt. The corridor of desperation he is talking about is the hospital, where he is begging to the point of tears that everything will be okay. It also represents that in time of need and hopelessness, people turn to God. They beg. They turn to Him for help. They turn to Him when all else has failed. They turn to Him in as a last resort, as a fleeting hope of desperation.

So overall, I pretty much love this book. Read it.