The Kite Runner - Eat, Tan, Read

When I was younger I used to only read Stephen King, R.L. Stein, Dean Koontz, you get my drift, pretty much thriller and horror only. When I was in High School, I stared my first job as a barista and found my co-worker’s copy of Nora Robert’s novel Lawless. That was my intro into great Romance novels. I very rarely left that comfort zone of those authors though. I had no idea the books I was missing out on.

The past several years I have made changes in the way I choose what books to read and I have been picking up ones that I normally wouldn’t. I join reading challenges that prompt me to choose books outside my comfort zone. We are two months into the year so far and my genre resume has already been so vast, Literary Women’s Fiction, Contemporary Realistic Fiction, New Adult Romance, Literary Fiction, Crime and Comedy Thriller, Poetry, and Non-fiction Memoir.

Here are a few that I have thoroughly enjoyed recently:

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell – Literary Women’s Fiction, Dark Academia
Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by NatashaTrethewey – Non-fiction Memoir
Because Of Jenny by Brad Neaton – Literary Fiction
Accidental Activist: Justice for the Groveland Four by Josh Venkataraman and Barbara Venkataraman – Non-fiction Memoir
Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult – Contemporary Realistic Fiction
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones – Literary Fiction
On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean by Scott B. Williams – Non-fiction Memoir, Travel
The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini – Contemporary Realistic Fiction
American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan – Non-fiction True Crime
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn – Historical Fiction

I hope that this will give you the push to expand your reading beyond your comfort zone as well. There is a whole world out there to explore. Don’t be afraid to check them out.

K is for …. Khaleesi

Khaleesi (the Bearded Dragon) approves this message.

A nice stack of K’s here. Nora Roberts, Ann Rule, Iris Johansen, Dean Koontz, all good ones but there is one that stands out among the rest.

The Kite Runner… This was a beautifully written, heart breaking and moving story. One that I could not put down, and weighs heavy on my heart still to this day. I read this book last year and it changed me. “There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.”

Having grown up only knowing Afghanistan as it is today, it was so eye opening to be shown what it was before war came and took ahold of it for 40 years. Makes you wonder what it could have been, or maybe what it can become.

Through out the story, you want Amir to make the right decisions and time and time again he disappoints. You want him to realize what a wonderful and pure person he has devoted to him in Hassan. But will that realization come too late? “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.”

I urge anyone who has not read this book yet to add to your TBR pile.

Tag: The Kite Runner

Don’t Get Stuck in a Genre Rut

K is for ….