➳ 3.75/5 stars “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors" I had very like very high expectations from this book but guess what it failed to deliver now before you come at my neck give me a minute to explain myself! so i went in with high expectations bc i loved the thousand splendid suns so much like literally I was bawling my eyes out and another reason why i had such high hopes bc everyone and their mother's love this book and I was so ready t...

Sad stories make good books. "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975." There are two types of books, usually, that makes one feel like there are no words to describe the experience: They are either unbelievably detrimental, or exceptionally (and positively) impactful. Given the overall high rating, it is redundant to tell, to which category does The Kite Runner belong. I don't think there are that many books, especially fiction...

It's been a while since I've been this frustrated with a main character...

WOW! This book was beautiful, exquisite.This book follows the story of a rich boy named Amir who grows up playing with his buddy Hassan who is the son of his father's servant. This story is one of friendship, betrayal, love, redemption, and family. There were so many different twists in this book that I never saw coming. It was also so real that I had to Google, "Is The Kite Runner based on a true story?" If you are wondering, no, it is not. Honestly, this book was so moving and beautiful that I...

‘for you, a thousand times over.’

no words can describe the heaviness i am feeling in my heart right now.

i will never re-read this as it is too emotionally devastating (i genuinely cant remember the last time a book made me cry so much), but i know it is a story that will stay will me for the rest of my life. of that, i have no doubt.

also, john, thanks for recommending this book, but i will be sending you my bill for all the therapy i will need after this.

↠ 5 stars

In 2012, when I was Mathematics teacher at a private high school in Iran, I had an Afghan student in my class. Sometimes, I discussed with my students about literature, and I told them of novels and poem. I found it very strange that my students had no interest in literature and even sometimes looked with hostility to this discussion. Days passed and much time was left to the end of school year. One day I saw Ali, Afghan student, came to me and had a booklet in his hand and I saw in his eyes sev...

Khaled Hosseini - image from The Washington Post This is a wonderful, moving novel set in the Afghanistan of the early 70’s and of today, about a young boy and his friend growing up in Kabul. Amir desperately wants his father’s approval, but Baba is not quick to give it. He is a rich man, brimming with macho vibrancy, while his son is a different sort altogether. Amir is fast friends with Hassan, the son of his father’s servant. They are as close as brothers. But, beset by bullies, an event occ...

This is the sort of book White America reads to feel worldly. Just like the spate of Native American pop fiction in the late eighties, this is overwhelmingly colonized literature, in that it pretends to reveal some aspect of the 'other' culture, but on closer inspection (aside from the occasional tidbit) it is a thoroughly western story, firmly ensconced in the western tradition. Even those tidbits Hosseini gives are of such a vague degree that to be impressed by them, one would have to have alm...

"For you, a thousand times over.""Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.""...attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.""But even when he wasn't around, he was.""When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal a wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing.""...she ha...

Finished this book about a month ago but it's taken me this long to write a review about it because I have such mixed feelings about it. It was a deeply affecting novel, but mostly not in a good way. I really wanted to like it, but the more I think about what I didn't like about the book, the more it bothers me. I even downgraded this review from two stars to one from the time I started writing it to the time I finished.Let's start off with the good, shall we? The writing itself was pretty good ...