The historical fictional novel, The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul. Amir is friends with a Hazara named Hassan, who is the son of Ali. Ali and Hassan are both servants for Baba and Amir. Kabul changed drastically once Afghanistan is under a Soviet Invasion. Soon enough the lives of Amir and Hassan changed forever.
    The author’s purpose of writing this novel was to show the importance of loyalty, truth, love, and regrets. In the book the author describes the relationship between Amir and Hassan. the quote, “ For you a thousand times over” represents a symbol to their friendship. Hassan is a very kind and loyal person. Especially to Amir since they have grown up together. In some parts of the book it explains how Amir was being disrespectful to Hassan, but Hassan kept his loyalty and decided to ignore it.
One example during their conversation/argument is:

“I'd sooner eat dirt,” he said with a look of indignation.
“Really? You’d do that?”
He threw me a puzzled look. “Do what?”
“Eat dirt if i told you to,” I said. I knew I was being cruel, like when I’d taunt him if he didn't know some big word...
“”If you asked, I would,” he finally said, looking right at me. I dropped my eyes.(Pg.54)

Another example is:

Then Hassan did pick up a pomegranate. He walked toward me. He opened it and crushed it against his own forehead. “There,” he croaked, red dripping down his face like blood. “Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?” He turned around and started down the hill. (Pg.93)

These quotes show how no matter what Amir does to Hassan he wouldn’t do the same back.
Amir challenges the friendship in some form of way to show how he is feeling and putting it out all on Hassan to see what he would do. Hassan would never hurt Amir in such a way. When Amir picked up the pomegranate and threw it at Hassan, Hassan picked up the pomegranate but doesn’t hit Amir but himself. Hassan believes that he shouldn’t hurt Amir in any ways either if it is physical or mentally. Hassan did nothing but to be nice and respectful towards Amir, Hassan should deserve the same respect back especially from Amir but he decided to be the opposite.
Even though Amir had done all these things to Hassan, Later on in Amir’s life he regretted what he did. I love how Hassan uses the phrase “ For you a thousand times over” because it shows how he would do anything for Amir if he askes him to do anything.

During the third paper clip, there is one part that really struck out to me was the part where Sohrab attempted to commit suicide. In the book it states,

“Home for kids?” he said, his smile fading. “ You mean an orphanage?”

“It would only be for a little while.”

“No,” he said. “No, please”

“Sohrab, it would be just a little while. I promise.”

“You promised you’d never put me in one of those places, Amir agha,” he said. His voice was breaking, tears pooling in his eyes. I felt it like a prick. (pg.341)

Later on in the book it explained how Amir could not talk Sohrab to the U.S. and would have to but Sohrab back in the orphanage first to be able to take him to the U.S. Amir told Sohrab the situation but was very unhappy with it. Sohrab’s unhappiness resulted him of attempting to commit suicide by cutting himself in a bathtub. Sohrab lost a great amount of blood but was able to live. In my opinion, the only reason why Sohrab attempted to commit suicide was because he was put into orphanage before and because in the book it states how the Assef would go to the orphanage and take the kids. Sohrab was unfortunately taken and had a bad experience with Assef because they did stuff to him and was scared. Amir promised Sohrab that he would never put him back to the orphanage, but Sohrab tried to kill himself because he was afraid that Amir will break the promise.

The weakness of the book in my opinion is when I had a discussion about the conflicts that made the ending, well not so great. The quote and explanation above shows how the conflicts effect the ending. I wished the ending was better but there is a reason why it isn’t as good. Hassan had many conflicts throughout the book and it took a while for him to get over his conflicts. Hassan’s main conflict was the broken friendship between Amir and himself. Hassan and Ali moved to Hazarajat. By moving, it left their friendship to a confusing ending. Amir wasn’t able to see Hassan again. Conflicts can effect people’s lives very deeply because there are some things in life that can can bring back bad memories. This is the same for Sohrab’s situation. Sohrab had a few conflicts but were pretty intense and it will take him a while to get over his conflicts and move on.

I’d recommend this book because it explains the friendship between Hassan and Amir. The friendship between them is the main thing that changed and grew conflicts off of the changes of their friendship. This book explain the hardships of their lives when the Soviet Invasion happened. Not only does the streets of Kabul change but  people changed too. This book is intense, despite the fact that conflicts kept building and building. At first, I wasn’t too fond of this novel but as I got deeper in to the book, my eyes got glued. I love the book, especially the part where the war had taken effect over everything and explained what the war did to his life as he grew up. I would recommend this book for readers who wants to see that war can effect other people’s lives.