Kite Runner for president

I finished Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini in six days. I have two children and I am gainfully employed outside the home. Finishing any book in six days says a lot about it. It's very good. Just like I heard. I regret letting the fact that it's set in Afghanistan deter me from reading it earlier.

Several things struck me about the book. The first is that Afghanistan has been through a lot. A lot of awful things. Some countries have it good and some just get more and more screwed up and that sucks. Especially if you didn't win the lottery and get born in America. Because, wow, it's a really different life growing up in a war torn country.

The other thing that struck me was that you have to learn to accept yourself including forgiving yourself for mistakes made in the past. You regret them, you wish you could take them back and you make amends the best you can. But at some point you just have to let them go. Because everyone has flaws and makes mistakes and that's just how it goes.

I have a friend that was also reading Kite Runner last week. She told me halfway through the book how mad she was at Amir, the main character. I understand why she was mad but I mostly just felt sorry for him. He always felt so unworthy and weak and scared. And those feelings led to bad decisions. But it wasn't malicious. And he was just a kid. And maybe I'm just a giant marshmallow but I just felt sad for him.

Speaking of things that made me sad, I swear I almost had to stop reading on page 219 and take a deep breath. The only reason I didn't was because I thought for sure there had been some sort of mistake. And then my stomach dropped on page 281 and I seriously wanted to punch the author in the face. And then the last 100 pages zoomed past. My favorite line in the whole book was "What if you get tired of me?" Little kids should not have to be scared of that. Get. Me. A. Tissue.

Kite Runner is by far the best book I've read all year. If you haven't read it, you're missing out.

Next up for me is The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. It's one of the many recommendations I received after mentioning how blah I felt about the books I've read recently. I appreciated each and every suggestion so I intend to read each and every one of them. I'm starting with The Memory Keeper's Daughter because No Way over at The Early Bird says it will suck me in. That's not good if it's a black hole but it's pretty awesome if it's a book recommendation.