I was warned that the beginning of the book wasn’t that interesting, but that I should tough it out and it’d get better. Truth be told, I had no complaints about the beginning. I enjoyed Hosseini’s style from the beginning, so the book was a pleasure to read. As arulba mentioned earlier, some horrific things happen to people, and the story’s pattern isn’t incredibly original (in particular, the “big surprise” shouldn’t be a surprise to any of the readers), but the characters were multi-faceted, we were able to learn a little about Afghanistan and its culture, and the whole package was presented well.