I first read this book over 10 years ago, when I was old enough to understand it but definitely didn’t know much context around it. I’m so glad I picked it up again now that I have a better understanding.

This year I have befriended a family of Afghan refugees (and by that I mean I have pretty much been adopted into their family), and the heartache I feel for them and their country made this book hit very differently. My friends fled Afghanistan over twenty years after this book’s plot ends, and yet the situation there has not changed for the better. This might be a work of fiction but the pain in it is so real and so unimaginable to me. 

I am also in awe of the language and use of parallels in this book. Khaled Hosseini’s descriptions are real and harrowing, but they never feel forced. There is so much emotional depth. I normally struggle with unlikeable characters and the main character definitely is a little shit at the beginning of the book, but Hosseini achieves to write him in a way that makes me not hate him or want to put the book down.