Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

This was a book recommended by my friend Liene and I was happy I read it. Again, I learned about a part of the world, about recent history in my favorite way - wrapped up in a story. This time it is Afghanistan in the last 40 years or so. The main charachter is Amir, a boy growing up in Afghanistan with his father in well to do circumstances. His best friend is Hassan, his family's servant boy, a Hazara -- an ethnic group considered lower class. When at one point he doesn't defend Hassan, he feels so guilty, his whole life changes, something gets broken inside. I enjoyed getting a feel for life in Afghanistan before all the turmoil began.

Amir soon left Afghanistan with his father and ended up in the San Franciso area. I could relate to the immigrant story - coming over with just the clothes on their backs, working hard in menial jobs, maintaining a community of Afghans (the author kept pronouncing it Afrans). They soon learned to scour yard sales and then resell the items in a flea market. This was not only a source of income, but a social event among the Afghans. For a while I was thinking - I am not seeing women in this story and how Muslims treat their women, but then the author himself says, that the boy doesn't know about women, since he grew up in a male household. That turns out to be a good thing, becasue he doesn't have the ingrained traditions of treating women as second class, and treats his wife in America well. I liked learning about their customs, their dating and marriage customs.

I do have to say the book was quite predictable in it's plot twists, even doing some heavy handed foreshadowing, and a friend called it melodramatic, but I didn't mind. When Amir returns to Afghanistan while the Taliban is in charge, he runs into a very sadistic character. This helped me understand that the Taliban is not so much a religious movement as a power trip.
(Listened to early October. The library copy was lost, so I ended up buying the book to check spellings. It will make a good gift for someone.)