The only reason why this collection of fairy-tale retelling received 4 stars instead of 5 is that some of the stories contained in the volume were slightly weaker than the others. My personal favorites were "The Bloody Chamber" and "Wolf-Alice."

I struggled to pick a rating for this collection of essays because the quality was so wildly inconsistent. Some essays were a solid five stars, but others hovered around the two star range.

Kite Runner was simultaneous breathtakingly beautiful and horrendously painful to read. The writing is amazing and the book is filled with gorgeous expressions, but Kite Runner`s real beauty comes in its ability to make the world and people of Afghanistan come alive. Hosseini is spot on when describing the setting and characters, with the possible exception being that he makes the people who are part of the Taliban seem one-sidedly evil in their depiction. But for all the beauty of the prose, the context and material in Kite Runner makes it a difficult book to get through. Midway through the book, I gave it up as I couldn`t see any possible way the book would end well and didn`t want to end up depressing myself. I didn`t sympathize with the protagonist, Amir, and was, quite frankly, disgusted by his actions. I came to realize, as time passed and I matured, that Hosseini was completely correct in the way he characterized Amir - Amir did what most other children would do when faced with a similar problem and responded in the only way he knew how. With this "epiphany," I picked the Kite Runner back up a few months later. The novel was still a bit depressing and I had to constantly remind myself to get through to the end, but I`m glad I did. The book, and the protagonist, redeemed themselves. There are many people out there who will criticize this book for a number of reasons - there were too many coincidences, it's hard to sympathize with Amir, the Taliban needs to be better portayed, etc - but if you're looking for a good story that looks deep into the irrational ways in which we sometimes behave, Kite Runner is it.