I was really looking forward to reading this having bern recommended it years ago but never got round to it. Now I find myself bewildered - is there another Khaled Hosseini who wrote a different Kite Runner? This book is really not good. It has all the subtlety of a punch to the face, is bursting with cliché and is indifferent bordering on dismissive of the female half of humanity. Add to that absurd plot points which Michael Bay would turn his nose up at and the overwhelming feeling is bafflement.