At first this method seemed very boring and because I'm a fast reader it made me slow down and relate my thoughts to my own life. A lot of the characters in the book, like Baba the father, I could easily relate to my dad for his wiseness. Like my dad known for his famous football stardom back home, Baba was known for wrestling a bear and helping people in need. Baba constantly said some of the wisest things and, like my dad, could say words that would "sting me" because they were so true. His idea of the biggest crime was stealing because you can steal the truth of a person was one of my favorite part of the book. I never thought of stealing in that sense. Baba and his friend, Ali, talked of all the mischive they got in to in their childhood years and my dad and his friends were exactly like that.
At times I could relate to Amir. I've always tried to impress my dad just like Amir. Of course in the end the reader finds out why Baba admired Hassan so much. This part came as a big surprise to me when I found out that he was Amir's half brother. It was cool though because it tied in with the idea of culture in this book and how the ranking of Hazaras was so stupid. Amir though was a lot like because I don't always stand up when I should, just like when Amir didn't stand up for Hasaan in the alley way. This part I think was the turning point of the book where it pretty much went from Amir's innocent childhood to real life and the pain and grieving in the world. I've always grown up in American, so this book really opened up my ideas to what people from other cultures feel when foreigners come to our country. Amir went through so much trauma that I've never come close to feeling. I've felt fear, hatred, panic, and carsickness but not like to the extent that Amir did.
This book, I thought at first, was really boring and began very slow with details I didn't care about. Then, to my realization, the towards the ending the book relates back to every detail mention. It made me realize that every detail at the beginning of the book was put in there for a reason and to make a point towards the end of the book. That was probably my favorite part of the book. I related this book more to other books like 1983 and Harry Potter than I did movies. The one movie I did think of was The Boy in Striped Pajamas which was about a Jew in a concentration camp and a little boy who wasn't a Jew and was free and how they bonded and were really good friends. In the end the Jewish boy dies and it reminds me a lot of Amir and Hasaan and their friendship they had. This book also held humor even though it is a very serious book. It helped make the story flow a lot more and I needed the good chuckle every once in a while. I related this also to how white people treated black people during the civil rights movement and the cruelty people possessed towards each other in that time. I don't know if I like this way of annotating and relating myself, but it definitely got me thinking deeper into the text.
