The Kite Runner

When I first looked at the book, the title confused me. Why would a book about Afghanistan be called The Kite Runner. That seems like an upbeat, fun thing i do with my dad on the beach, not exactly what I think of when I think about the middle east. That was the irony of the title. The book was so sad and depressing, yet in each dark moment, the author seemed to incorporate some sort of foreshadow that led the reader to think, "better times will come." The book was a captivating read, and I was never bored with it, except for the ending, which I thought did no justice to end the rest of the phenomenal book. Those were just my initial reactions.

I chose to do the "interact with the book" style of annotation. I thought this was fitting for the book so that I was free to react to the choices Amir made, the connections I made to the book with the world now, ask questions, etc. The whole time, however, I found myself writing the same thing in the margins of my book (much to the dislike of my pre- AP lit self), and that was "Amir! you have to tell somebody!" Amir, throughout the entire book dealth with self conflict. The author's style did a fantastic job to make the reader feel what Amir felt, yet the reader always knew the correct choices Amir should have, or could have made. This style made me feel sorry for Amir only about the things he could not control. For example, I felt sorry for him that his father didn't give him the love he needed, however, I didn't feel sorry for him about the guilt he felt because he didn't stop the rape.

the ending, like I said before, did not do it for me. I was expecting something more. A smile is not a large enough ending I thought, mostly because the kid hadn't spoke, showed emotion, or anything for a year and a simple smile probably wouldn't change much. I am probably just being cynical :)

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was sad, yes, but it was a great story and had happy moments.

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