The Bookworm's Feast

“I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.”

I find it so hard to rate books like this… I can’t say I enjoyed it – it’s an utterly heartbreaking story.

Warning – I may get a bit spoilery depending on your definition.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good story, and it certainly sparked emotion in me; I have to admit though that it was mainly frustration I experienced. I just couldn’t get behind Amir’s reasoning for his actions at pivotal points – and characters are such an important part of the story for me.

We follow the stories of Amir and Hassan – two boys who grow up in the same household under very different circumstances and are the best of friends (kinda). I adore Hassan, but unfortunately (for me) we follow the tale from Amir’s perspective – who I have already mentioned, I didn’t really warm up to at all. The tale starts in the 70s with a view of Kabul as a paradise, and then move on to the Soviet invasion and rise of the Taliban.

In the beginning, I was enjoying the story (as much as you can with the topics), but as I got further through the book, the more out of love I fell with it. It felt like the tale turned into more of a magical fantasy, where you’ll instantly bump into people you don’t know but can tell you your history, you’re granted audiences with what appear higher ranking Taliban members (who also don’t check for weapons on their prisoners?), every injury although severe was all lucky and you’ll be good as new… just a little scarring – it just felt like it was starting to border a bit farcical in its coincidences.

I think shining the light on the atrocity is important, I’m just not sure it was necessarily shown well – our main big mean baddie has Aryen features and loves Hitler… just… OK. I must admit, I don’t know much about Afghanistan – this is all just opinion on the story presented before me – maybe all this is plausible.

Also, I’ve noticed I started saying this is a good story – but the more I’ve gone on writing my review, the less I seem to agree with my own sentence… with the love this book gets, and the people I read this with loved it, I think its maybe just a book that isn’t for me. I started this review as 3 stars and have since knocked it down to 2.

Trigger warning: rape

 Release Date: Feb 2009 (first in 2003)
 Publisher: Bloomsbury
 Genre: Historical Fiction, Contemporary
 Page Count: 336
 Goodreads
 Rating: ★★☆☆☆