I finished this book last night. I could hardly wait to get home to read it. I liked this book very much even though it made me sad. When I finished, I was rather dazed by all that I had read, and a little depressed. An extra hug from George and a bowl of spaghetti made me feel better. I'm lucky. The world we live in is such a messed up place. This book is fiction, and I talked yesterday about how I like happy endings. This book tries very hard to have a happy ending, but I am still left with a sick feeling about the Taliban, the recent history of Afghanistan, and then spreading out from there, the history of all countries who have been taken over and vandalized in the name of some religion or another. I guess in the end, I felt a little manipulated, and that the twists in the book were a little too dark for me to handle.
In the second half of the novel, the hardest for me to read, the story is, in the author's words: "He went back to Afghanistan, then ruled by the Taliban, to settle an old score. He went back after a 20-year absence to atone for a sin he had committed as a boy. He went back to rescue a child he had never met, and to rescue himself from damnation." It is this part of the book that I found almost distressing. I am hurt when I read about bad things happening to children.
We live in hard times. This book seems so real it is hard to remember that it is fiction. I think I needed a happier ending. But it was a great read.
Have a good night.
