MixedThe Chicago TribuneAmir and Hassan are great friends until they realize they aren't supposed to be, and then things begin to go wrong. For Amir, physically and morally the weaker of the two, guilt soon turns to cruelty, and Hassan, an angel of a boy, becomes the butt of his wealthy friend's jokes … One of the great strengths of The Kite Runner is its sympathetic portrayal of Afghans and Afghan culture...But as a novel, it falls short. The characters lack depth – Amir's guilt is as blank and unexplored as Hassan's goodness – and while some elements of the narrative ring true, others...read like hackneyed newspaper accounts … Hosseini writes with warmth and enviable familiarity about Afghanistan and its people, but as a novelist, he has a long way to go.
