Khaled Hosseini Makes Me Sad (With His Books)

I just finished "The Kite Runner". Boy, was that a tough ending.

Where I left of, Amir, the main character in the book, has just found out his half brother is dead, and that his half nephew is in an orphanage in Kabul. Amir goes to Kabul with a driver to the orphanage. The driver ( who I think is named Fayid but I'm not so sure) dislikes Amir because he believes he is just going there to sell his father's land. When he finds out what Amir's real intentions are, he promises to help Amir get Sohrab.

Amir heads to Kabul. But Kabul is not the city that Amir knew. The Taliban and the Soviet Union destroyed the city of Amir's childhood. Well, when they get to the orphanage, they find out that Sohrab, Amir's half nephew, was sold to a Taliban member. The owner of the orphanage needed to sell Sohrab, but this is a big set back for Amir. Things will not be so easy.

Amir and his driver follow the Taliban member from a soccer game where he stoned to people to death. Then, Amir gets into his old house, where the Taliban member now lives. And guess who the Taliban guy is. It's Assef!

For those of you who didn't read my last post, Assef is the boy who raped Hassan when Amir was a kid. Assef swore he would hurt Amir. He already raped Hassan, but he didn't do anything to Amir. So, Assef starts beating the heck out of Amir. Then Sohrab, who has been watching the whole time, tells Assef to stop attacking Amir. When he doesn't, Sohrab shoots a brass ball into Assef's eye. They flee, and Amir has Sohrab.

Then, Amir discovers that the family that he was supposed to give Sohrab to doesn't exist. So, he has to adopt Sohrab. But, adopting his half nephew will not be too easy. In fact, he will half to put him back into an orphanage. Sohrab obviously doesn't have very fond memories of his last orphanage, because he slits his wrist in an attempt to kill himself when he hears the news. He doesn't die, though.

Amir's wife, Soroya, ends up getting a humanitarian visa for Sohrab, so he doesn't have to go to the orphanage.

When they go to America, Sohrab goes mute, upset that he didn't succeed in killing himself. In the end, though, he warms up to Amir and his wife and accepts the fact that his life will never be like it was before his father was killed.

Then, I began "A Thousand Splendid Suns", another book by the same author. So far, it is the story of Mariam, a girl who was never wanted. She is the living form of her father's scandalous mistake, which leads her to lead a bad life. She goes to find her father after he breaks a promise, and her mother, upset that her daughter has left her, hangs herself with a N-O-O-S-E, Jack. And now, she might have to marry a 40 year old at 15. That's just plain ridiculous.