I have an entirely different take on the book. I thought it was a personal story about power and its abuse within a family. How some members have priveledge and others do not and how that priveledge twists the relationships even when they are loving. My husband came from a background in a foreign country where he grew up with child servants. His mother grew up in the same situations but with even more extreme power relationships. I have heard many bitter stories from her of how abusive these relationships often were. I can tell you that some members of her family joined communist guerilla groups years ago over their bitterness over how servants (who were really relatives) were treated. I myself have met child servants and former child servants when visiting my husbands family abroad. They reminded me very much of the boy in this story. I thought he did an excellent job of showing the pitfalls of this system. I knew exactly who Hassan was almost immediately because of my own knowledge of my husband's families history.

The story wasn't meant to be about the causes of the war in Afghanastan. That's the background for a story of power,and love and how they are twisted for everyone. It is a family story.

I did not find it homophobic. Homosexuals are against child abuse and molestation. Why would there need to be a balancing homosexual relationship within the context of the story if the author couldn't find a way to make it work in the story? That is puting a political burden on art that it doensn't need to carry. Why can't the author assume the reader can see the child abuse for what it is and not typical homosexual behavior?