The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Khaled Hosseini is a distinguished writer from Afghanistan and founder of Khaled Hosseini Foundation to help the refugees and downtrodden of his country.

The Kite Runner is a book based on two young boys who lived together but were never close to each other due to their social status.

Storyline: Amir, the son of a rich man in Kabul, Afghanistan is befriended by Hassan, a boy who is born to a low caste Hazara. Hassan, though is the servant’s kid, is allowed to play, dine and assist Amir in his daily routine. The innocent loyalty of Hassan towards Amir is so high that Amir’s father treats him as his second son and never treated him like a servant. But Amir does not replicate the same to Hassan many times, particularly one day when Hassan was attacked by a group of anti-Hazara boys from the neighborhood, when Hassan runs to fetch the kite struck and won by Amir in the famous Kite Festival of Kabul. This guilt of betrayal makes Amir to distance himself from Hassan though the later never minded it. This leads to Hassan leaving Amir’s home forever. Amir and his father later migrate to America after Afghanistan was taken over by the Russians. Hassan is forgotten by Amir in due course. After some years, Amir gets married in America and decides to visit Afghanistan followed by a phone call by his uncle Rahim. There he comes to know of his life secret that Hassan is non other than his half brother born to his father and the servant maid. Hassan dies in a Taliban attack trying to protect Amir’s house in Kabul a little earlier and is survived by his son, Sohrab. This child of Hassan is abducted by the Talibs from an orphanage and sexually abused. Amir takes the responsibility of rescuing Sohrab from the Talibs and adopts him, as a remorse to all his sins of betraying his father. Moreover Amir himself is childless. But the emotionally insecure Sohrab will not be able to gel into the new family as he misses his parents and freedom. After Afghanistan is freed from the Talibs, Amir and his family re-visits his homeland to do some charity activities. During one such activity, Sohrab takes interest in flying a kite and Amir flies the kite for him just like the way Sohrab’s father used to do for Amir. The story ends with Amir cutting the opponent’s kite and running for the severed kite just like the way his brother Hassan, used to do for him.

Pros: A great emotional story of live of two happy kids from different social strata, transformed into a tragedy for no fault of theirs. A story which shows how millions of lives have tragic endings due to an unexpected turmoil in the form of constant war, killings of the innocents and suffering of the survivors. Lucky were the one who were dead and dilapidated were the lives of the left behind. A highly emotional writing with apt usage of classic prose that will leave no reader tear-less while reading this book. I would recommend this book to every reader to know how some lives end up in tragedy simply for no fault of theirs. I appreciate the author’s talent in highlighting the Afghan culture and tradition in the most desirable way.

Cons: Child abuse was the point I hated to read in this book. Though this was the most disturbing fact of the day and ever growing menace in today’s world, I could not stand the way Hassan and his son were abused sexually by the upper caste during their childhood days. How can one do it to a kid? Disgusting!!! No wonder such kids will grow with extremist ideas and replicate the same after they grow up, inculcating the mindset of violence in their behavior..

My rating is 4.25 out of 5


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Strip Me Bare Plus Free Bonus Book: Cheat by Mia Perry
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

A book of super strong adult dirty talk, that arouses every male or female as long as he/she is reading through. The book takes the reader through a variety of sexual experiences of young girls right from their school, hostel, work and strange highway encounters with physically attractive males sometimes much older than them.
One would get the right understanding as to how far a young girl can go when it comes to satisfying her physical needs. It also gives a warning signal to those parents who have daughters studying or working, staying far off from them with respect to the kind of men they are exposed to and the potential threat that might arise in future regarding their safety, keeping in view the present trend of sexual abuses on young girls across the world. Young girls must be more careful and not just get attracted and get used to such brief physical encounters with strangers.
The author might have earned many laurels for having written such erotic books with grand imagination but such books might pollute the thoughts of the already disturbed youth, and also the adults, making them more and more prone to abandonment of cultural values and traditions of their respective societies. The danger of replication of the stories in the book in real life is all the threat I foresee whenever such books enter the market.

My rating is 1 out of 5


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WORLD WAR Z (HOLLYWOOD ACTION MOVIE)

Directed by Marc Forster, Produced by Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, Dede Gardner and Ian Bryce. Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge and David Morse. Music by Marco Beltrami. Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Storyline: Gerry (Brad Pitt), a UN investigator is forced to investigate a deadly zombie outbreak across the world, through his superior at UN headquarters. He finds that the entire population in his city is fully infected with a strange rabies like infection which when bitten by the infected turns into a zombie within seconds. This pandemonium spreads fast across the world and Gerry’s family narrowly escapes the zombie attack. Gerry sets off to World Health Organisation’s Research facility at Cardiff to find a solution to the epidemic and in the meanwhile visits Jerusalem to find out how Israel was able to contain the zombies and protect the un-infected. There he discovers that the zombies only bite the healthy and not the diseased and feeble. He reaches the WHO facility with great difficulty and takes the risk of getting himself injected with an unknown deadly disease which can later be cured, from the facility’s lab. His daring attempt of trial and error goes successful as the zombies in the lab ignore Gerry’s body. He, then takes the vials of the curable disease and spreads it across the world only to protect them from zombies temporarily while zombies are eradicated slowly by the world military. The story ends with a happy re-union of Gerry with his family, who thought that Gerry was dead in his mission.

Pros: The screenplay was at its best in this movie. One would get many hair-raising moments and horrified by the way the infected zombies bite the healthy population who in turn get turned into zombies within seconds. Brad Pitt’s un-paralleled performance need not be mentioned. The emotional separation of the family when Gerry leaves to investigate the epidemic is captured very well.

Cons: Didn’t get the fact how the soldiers escaped from the zombies who were lurking everywhere and why other animals were not shown to be bitten by the zombies. There seemed to be something lacking in the direction which could not give the required punch in the climax.

My rating is 2.75 out of 5

The Symposium by Plato
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This great work of Plato is a recording of a philosophical discussion and debate of Socrates and his contemporary philosopher friends at a banquet held by Agathon at his residence over the subject called DOCTRINE OF LOVE.

One would get mesmerized by the different opinions about love by some of the greatest Greek minds.The discussion and debate proceeds one after the other with each of the great persons like Agathon, Aristodemus, Eryximachus, Pausanias, Aristophanes and finally Socrates describe love in all possible permutations and combinations. Each of them have their own versions which might appear true to every reader in some context or the other. But the one given by Socrates was of course the best! His version of love is that of immortality through beauty. According to him every living thing loves to be immortal and eternal and hence it re-creates itself through an emotion called love. Hence according to Socrates, love is nothing but one’s affinity for eternity or immortality of body and fame, which is attained through this complex psychological emotion.
At one point in the book, the reader gets an impression about the speakers favoring homosexuality as some of them argue about the purity of love more in the same sex rather than opposite sexes. One gets a feeling that even Socrates favored this in his opinion. But we are not sure of how it got contemplated later.
One can get the best of philosophical definitions and derivations about love in this book right through some of the greatest minds of Greek philosophy.

My favorite quote in the book
“Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, in as much as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting”

My rating is 3.75 out of 5


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Wedding at King's Convenience by Maureen Child
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The author is a native American writer who loves writing happy ended love stories.

Storyline: Maura Donahue, owner of a large picturesque farmland in Ireland, one day is encountered by the owner of a large film studio from New York, Jefferson King, in order to hire her farm to shoot his forthcoming film. Though initially Maura declines the huge commercial offer from Jefferson, she later budges to the same, when she finds that she is in love with the handsome and powerful King. She signs a contract with King after an irresistible sexual encounter with him. Jefferson leaves, having got his job done. Maura becomes pregnant later but will be unable to reach Jefferson at New York due to his busy schedule. One day, Jefferson learns that Maura is not cooperating with his crew for the shoot at her farm as per the contract signed and so decides to visit Ireland to know the reasons personally. There he discovers the truth of Maura’s pregnancy. Maura in the meanwhile develops deep hatred towards King as he refuses to love her but offers to marry her, just as an obligation, due to his past failed love story. Eventually, with the intervention of King’s family, both of them realize that they are in deep love with each other and cannot live without each other. King, then proposes his love to Maura and offers to marry her and also start living with her in Ireland to which Maura accepts.

Pros: It’s a cool love story of a self centered woman with a highly successful man. The strength of a woman when she wants to be what she is, has been elicited with magnificence here. The truth that even an Alpha male would succumb to a mentally strong woman is well written. Suppressing one’s egos sometimes to continue a relationship is very much necessary nowadays for the benefit of the family as well as society. This is the only link to extension of human race for some more centuries….probably!

Cons: I doubt whether such powerful and successful businessmen nowadays succumb to sentiments like love and marriage. Maura could have avoided the trauma if she was strong enough to avoid the physical contact with Jefferson. Her mental stubbornness was not gelling with her physical intentions….a clear reason for all the woes of her kind.

My favorite quote in the book

“ If every woman waited for a man who was worthy of her, there did be no marriages, would there?”

My rating is 3.5 out of 5


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