I had started listening to THE KITE RUNNER on audiobook. **SPOILERS**

[raccoon]

Got thru the second CD, where a boy was raped.

I decided I'm not going to read any further.

I'm going to look for a website that rates books the way movies are rated. Things like that bother me.

Edited to add: Another thing, IMO the protagonist is a real turkey (euphemism). He might be just a kid, but
I still find him impossible to like.

[gollygee]

1. Well . . . (More spoilers!)

The book is about him trying to find redemption for not doing anything, and his overall treatment of his friend, so him being a jerk at this point is necessary for the rest of the book and the overall theme of redemption. But I felt like he wasn't particularly likable at any point, and I didn't find the character of the boy who was raped very believable. I like the author's second book better - A Thousand Splendid Suns.

I did like The Kite Runner but it wasn't my favorite of Hosseini's books.

[closeupready]

2. The story resonated with me, because when I was a child,

I had a similar experience with my best friend, where I could have done more to help a friend of mine, but didn't in a way that later deeply shamed me. He wasn't being raped, but rather, it was some kind of squabble. So reading it and then the fact that he was given the opportunity to make amends in such a deeply moving way, that was something that brought me to tears in so many places in the story, and even now, my eyes are getting misty.

It's not a perfect book - there are one too many encounters with malignant twists of fate. Nonetheless, I didn't find that the imperfections made the story a bad one. I agree that the protagonist isn't the most sympathetic character, but again, I felt the story on a personal level, and I'm grateful that he wrote it.

[Lex]

3. It is a very intense story.

The story is hard to read in places but it is a wonderful book. Not a run-of-the-mill kind of book.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. I thought the book was very good.

You might be missing a lot of great books if you avoid horrible things that can happen to people. You are right, though, that was a very hard thing to read about. Don't give up on this book.