Hands down. It's the BEST book of the century. Ranked the highest among the best-written books I've ever read. For me, it topped, surprisingly, For One More Day by Mitch Albom which used to be my #1. with , The History of Love, Tuesdays With Morrie, Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas, To Kill a Mockingbird and the rest trailing behind. The movie was great but i would recommend the book to those who are willing to take up on my challenge when i say this is THE "BEST book of the century". The book is way more detailed - what book is not? - than the movie. Khaled has a way of making you feel like you're really there in Amir's(Khaled's narrator in the book) head or really seeing what he is at that moment. The story is really descriptive, gripping and even more, heartbreaking. It potrays the life and journey of Amir and his friendship with a boy called Hassan. The booked had moved me in so many ways and I've cried several times.
Here's a minor part of the story. Just to give you lot an idea of how captivating the story is. (mind you, I'm typing this all down straight from the book. Just to share :) )
"What are you doing here?" I panted, my stomach roiling with nausea.
He smiled. "Sit with me, Amir agha."
I dropped next to him, lay on a thin patch of snow, wheezing. "You're wasting our time. It was going the other way, didn't you see?"
Hassan popped a mulberry in his mouth. "It's coming," he said. I could hardly breathe and he didn't even sound tired.
"How do you know?" I said.
"I know."
"How can you know?"
He turned to me. A few sweat beads rolled from his bald scalp. "Would I ever lie to you, Amir agha?"
Suddenly I decided to toy with him a little. "I don't know. Would you?"
"I'd sooner eat dirt." he said with a look of indignation.
"Really? You'd do that?"
He threw me a puzzled look. "Do what?"
"Eat dirt if I told you to," I said. I knew I was being cruel, like when I'd taunt him if he didn't know some big word. But there was something fascinating - albeit in a sick way - about teasing Hassan. Kind of like when we used to play insect torture. Except now, he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass.
His eyes searched my face for a long time. We sat there, two boys under a sour cherry tree, suddenly looking, really looking at each other. That's when it happened again: Hassan's face changed. Maybe not changed, not really, but suddenly I had the feeling I was looking at two faces, the one I knew, the one that was my first memory and another, a second face, this one lurking just beneath the surface. I'd seen it happen before - it always shook me up a little. It just disappeared, this other face, for a fraction of a moment, long enough to leave me with the unsettling feeling that maybe I'd seen it someplace before. Then Hassan blinked and it was just him again. Just Hassan.
"If you asked, I would," he finally said, looking right at me. I dropped my eyes. To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say.
"But I wonder," he added. "Would you ever ask me to do such a thing, Amir agha?" And, just like that, he had thrown at me his own little test. If I was going to toy with him and challenge his loyalty, then he'd toy with me, test my integrity.
I wish I hadn't started this conversation. I forced a smile. "Don't be stupid, Hassan. You know I wouldn't."
Hassan returned the smile. Except his didn't look forced. " I know," he said. And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
"[The Kite Runner]...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 the Russian forces. But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are represented in The Kite Runner, are only part of this story. 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 even today. "
-The New York Times Book Review
A SAN FRANSISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY TOP TEN FICTION PICK OF THE YEAR
AN AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTABLE BOOK
RECIPIENT OF THE AMERICAN PLACE THEATRE'S LITERATURE TO LIFE AWARD
All there is next is
to finally embrace the beauty of the Kaabah for myself one day.
InsyaAllah.