The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

Was it me, or was this book not as good as so many people seemed to think it is? It engaged me before page 50 and I can't say it was tough sledding, but the language was clunky and it seemed very much like a middlebrow "book club book."

I think it earned a lot of popularity because it was about Afghanistan and opened a world to many people, but having read Tamim Ansary's non-fiction "West of Kabul, East of New York," I'll take that one first. It's far superior.