I just started KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini, a book about two young boys growing up in Afghanistan together. They are from different ancestry and Hassan and his father are in servitude

under the main character and narrator, twelve year old Amir and his rich father (or Baba). Set in pre-war Afghanistan with the bustling markets in town and clear blue mountain lakes they live in a paradise with lush green rolling hills and great poplar trees these boys are as brothers with a bond deeper than their clashing identities.

I noticed early in the book how Amir desperately strived for his father's approval bending over backwards to get his attention. Amir asks his father in one scene if he can sit with him for a while even though he is with his gentlemen friends "Go on now." Baba says, "This is grown-ups time." and closes the door leaving Amir wondering why it is always grown up time.

Amir and Hassan are away climbing the secluded poplar tree near Amir's Baba's mansion. They sit in the branches, Amir reads to an illiterate Hassan who is fascinated by the stories that the leather bound paper holds. Amir and Hassan are of different social classes and each have very different relationships with Amir's father. Whenever Baba is going to buy something for Amir he buys an identical present for Hassan, no matter how expensive. It is often very frustrating for Amir to have your father treat his servants almost better than his own son. Amir often plays little pranks on Hassan but is never violent or spiteful towards his loyal and best of friends.

One night when there were gunshots and loud booming in the night Hassan's father Ali held Hassan telling him it would be ok while Amir looked on thinking about his father who was out of town. He spent the entire night telling himself not to be envious even as jealousy enveloped his heart. Amir always tiptoes around his father but is still eager to please and impress and yearns for attention. He has suspicions that his father hates him because his mother was killed giving birth to him. She was the love of his father's life.

With all of this combined I can't wait to read more, pIa <3