wednesday. the kite runner.

i've spent the last two days thinking about this book, and i finished the last page almost a week ago. i, like much of the population, hear and read about the middle east on almost a daily basis—and have, for much of my life. but this book, although fiction, turned on a switch that didn't exist for me before. the switch that truly opened my eyes to listening and paying attention.

it's so easy for us to sit here in our comfy lives, watching war after war unfold on the television screen; skimming the headlines day after day; another bombing, another city taken, shooting, killing ... the list goes on. i think desensitization is an understatement. the problem i found with my own opinion and my own outlook on what's happened and is happening is not recognizing that each time one of these atrocities occurs, someone loses a family member. all too often i don't think, what if it were my family? what if something like this happened to me?

the civilians in many of these cities and countries are just as afraid of what's going on as we are, and it's so easy to group them together. but they're the ones living it EVERY single day. they're the ones waking up to the noise. we wake up to headlines. war is such an ugly thing—but some of these people have been rooted in war for hundreds of years. i can't even imagine. i'm no expert, and don't know nearly enough to even feel like i'm able to give an educated opinion ... but i think that's part of the problem—most of us are that way, and many of us still form the opinion—without the knowledge behind it.

the kite runner isn't about war. well, it is, but it's not a history lesson. it's a story ... and SUCH a well-told story. one that i know i won't ever forget, and wouldn't want to. a story of two boys, a specifically horrible incident, and how it shaped them into who they are, haunted them, and eventually, a quarter of a century later, lands right in the face of one of them.

this book is a bestseller for a reason. read it. you won't regret it, or forget it.