cmjwallace

I haven't had a visceral reaction to many books since I was a kid and my emotions controlled me rather than the opposite. But sometimes the writer takes me by the hand and pulls me right through the looking glass, and this was one of those times. A deep betrayal compounded by an even deeper one that ends two lifelong friendships is a major premise of The Kite Runner.

One of the preimplosion childhood pranks pulled by Amir and Hassan—using a mirror to shine a light into the neighbors’ house to annoy them—reminded me forcefully of something my sisters and I used to do and is one of the reasons I liked the book. (In my case, our torment of the neighbor involved a huge cedar hedge that separated our property from his and was his pride and joy, dares to see who could climb it the fastest and end up the highest, and lusty piercing battle cries that invariably brought him swarming out of his house in high dudgeon. Most satisfying!)

The book is well written, well edited, and well worth reading.