Hardships, friendship, regret, and redemption - This is the focus of the fantastic audio book, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini.

The story begins in the 70’s, with a boy named Amir, and his most loyal friend, Hassan. Amir, vying for his father’s attention and approval, struggles constantly to come to grips with his apparent inability to do so. Hassan, a servant of the family, is always there to serve and protect Amir from Afghanistan’s unruly neighborhood kids. Together, they formed a bond that was as tight as the bond of brothers.

Amir, his courage and integrity tested over and over, finally broke that bond with Hassan, in an afternoon of horror, betrayal, and weakness. With that fateful afternoon, the two drifted apart. Life moved on for both kids, until years later, Amir was called upon to redeem himself with one final request - one that would change his life forever, and to find within himself, a small measure of peace.

Narration

Written and narrated by the author, Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner audio book was fairly simple in it’s delivery. It’s one of a few audio books that I’ve listened to where not much effort was given to distinguishing the characters. However, this doesn’t detract from the audio book. Instead, Khaled Hosseini did a wonderful job in describing characters, and their subtle nuances within the novel, that it wasn’t terribly hard to imagine exactly what he wanted us to imagine.

Characters

When a book can stir up deep emotions, you know you’ve found a good one. The deepest emotion I felt (within the first quarter of The Kite Runner) was anger, embarrassment, and unfortunately, some hatred. This was all aimed towards the little boy, Amir, and his regrettable acts, particularly when Hassan was the one in trouble, and Amir did nothing to help. I’m sure his portrayal, in this manner, was the author’s intention, and he did a fantastic job in that sense.

Amir’s father, Baba, was a character that was developed well, and I could relate to Amir’s struggles with him. I felt saddened near the end of the story, with his passing. The other characters: Hassan, Rahim Khan, and Sohrab were also developed well, with Hassan being the better of the bunch.

Other Notes

There was a movie, starring Kevin Costner, and Robert Duvall, called Open Range. Have you seen it? It’s good, but that’s beside the point. There was one quote in that movie that’s stuck with me since I’ve watched it: “…there’s things that gnaw at a man worse than dying.”

If I could pick a quote that best described this audio book, it would be that one. A story of cowardice, life-long regret, and redemption.

Interested in listening to the story too? You can download The Kite Runner audio for free, by signing up with Audible today. Please feel free to drop us a comment and let us know what you thought of the story.