Wonderfully written and affecting story. Amir and his father in particular were excellently drawn, but I never quite connected to Hassan in the same way. It can be hard to connect to absolute goodness, I find, so I'm not entirely sure if it's his total lack of flaw or Hosseini's depiction of him that's the reason for the disconnect. Hassan's just so very good one wants to prod him a bit to see if he's real.

I tend to think that the reason this book is so good at provoking emotion is the structure of it. The Kite Runner is almost like a small contained puzzle-box, and while all the connections in it are emotionally satisfying, the fact that there are so unrealistically many never lets you forget that you're reading fiction - that is, a piece constructed entirely to play upon your emotion. Which it does extremely well, I have to say, almost well enough to let you forget the artificiality in all that coincidence.