If you suspect I'm about to launch into a scathing criticism of this book, I'm not, exactly. It's not a bad book--if you're an anal rape enthusiast. And hey, I'm as liberal-minded as the next guy, and so, sure, a modicum of anal rape can be quite lovely...but if you've ever heard of the concept of "too much of a good thing," you can see how it might apply to ass rape.

Let me recap this book for you, in case you:

a) don't have time to read it yourself, or

b) hear enough about ass rape in church and at the dinner table, and don't have room in your heart for any extra. In a nutshell, here's the book:

*Spoiler alert, genius.*
--------------------

Young male narrator lives in a supposedly perfectly lovely country that happens to be populated with a small faction of evil people. Young narrator has an pleasant childhood in which he spends his days at his rich father's estate, frolicking with his best (well, only) friend, the servant's son. Life is grand.

Suddenly, the small faction of evil people take over this supposedly perfectly lovely country, lightning-quick. Now, anal rape abounds, as well as copious random gunfire and bombing. This drastic change happens in a matter of about 14 seconds. The servant's son gets anally raped, and the young narrator shuns him, wanting no part of anyone who has become a boy toy for evil sodomites.

The crafty young narrator comes up with a scheme to get his father to banish the servant and his son, who wander off on their own to live in poverty amid the constant gunfire and bombing. One of the perpetrators of the servant boy's anal rape gets anally raped himself, then dies. Narrator and father flee the country and come to America in search of a quiet, rape-free life.

Narrator grows up with his be-hymen intact, and eventually returns to his country upon hearing that his childhood rape-victim friend and his wife have been killed by the evil people, leaving behind an orphaned son. Narrator searches the ruins of the now war-torn country for the boy, who, as it turns out, has been copiously anally raped for quite some time before the narrator manages to locate him in an impoverished hovel of an orphanage. In the process of recovering the boy, the narrator himself narrowly escapes being anally raped.

Narrator brings the boy home to raise, which you'd think would be the happy ending--yet the sad boy stops talking and never again speaks a word to anyone, so traumatized by the vicious rape and abuse he has suffered.

The end.

--------------------

There, I just saved you a few bucks; you're welcome.

After spending a few evenings reading this book, I was the one who felt raped. I want those hours back, and I also want back my faith in a world where civil unrest doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with vicious, forced sodomy.

Thank you, Khaled Hosseini, for bringing your strange, private obsession into my world. Now please put down that typewriter and get yourself a job as a prison guard.

Posted by karla @ 9:12 PM