The Kite Runner book review

Khaled Hosseini's book The Kite Runner is a story of jealousy, redemption, war, salvation, courage and cowardice. It is about friendship, love, devotion and isolation. The book is beautifully written with passages that jump off the page and others that bring the reader to near tears. However, be warned that you will loathe the protagonist for roughly the first 200 or so pages. In fact, you will wonder why you even keep reading and then you remember just how stunning the actual writing is. The story is set in Afghanistan, then the USA, then Afghanistan again and is about a man who is on a mission for redemption. The story is deliberately paced, yet towards the end it turns into a full fledged page turner as you race to find out how it ends. This is the kind of book you want to read with a highlighter so you can highlight certain passages you wish to share with other people. This book is about as character driven as a book can get. Yes, there is a plot and a relevant story, but it all seems secondary as you watch this tortured man try and atone for his childhood behavior. I do not want to give anything away, so My review will be short, but if you enjoy those classic works of literature that put the reader in a position to challenge his/her thoughts about what people are capable of, I highly suggest this book, because you can easily get passed how predictable it is and become glued to the language and the heart.