Amazon.co.uk Review and back cover of the book:
“Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the approval of his father and resolves to win the local kite-fighting tournament, to prove that he has the makings of a man. His loyal friend Hassan promises to help him – for he always helps Amir – but this is 1970s Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at in the street, although Amir still feels jealous of his natural courage and the place he holds in his father’s heart. But neither of the boys could foresee what would happen to Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament, which was to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return, to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption. .
The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah’s 40-year reign and traces the country’s fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban.”

Do not read the review on Amazon, it gives too much away of the storyline.

A beautiful book! Just the ending gets a bit too frantic for its own good, I don’t think it quite fits with the rest of the book. But still, well worth reading and a lot more gripping than I expected.
The beginning is a fairly typical coming of age story and just when it all slowed down and I started to loose interest, something unexpected happened and we were off again to a new development in the storyline. That happened several times.
The beginning of the story is definitely the most poetic part, but I also loved the part with the weekly market and Amir meeting Soraya. When Amir eventually goes back to Kabul, what happens is not a great surprise, I predicted it almost down to the details, but it still kept me up until 3am this morning. I just had to finish the last 100 or so pages in one sitting.
Very good! Oh, just in case you are wondering, I was crying on page 299….