Just completed read it. In 3 days flat. Some friend of mine gave it to me to read, saying that it was a nice novel. Although I was a little skeptical as he himself hadn't read it. But, he insisted that its reviews were good, so I thought of giving it a try atleast.

The first 20-25 pages were quite boring and I kept wondering - Why the hell I was putting so much effort in trying to read it? At that time I never even dreamed of completing it - the story wasn't moving much, infact it was not going anywhere at all and moreover because it was set up in Afganistan, I wasn't able to relate much to it. Finally, I decided that I will read a few more pages and if I didn't start liking it, I'll dump it.

But slowly the story begin to pickup and just like the old wine has its effect slowly but surely, this story also kept me hooked and I couldn't leave it till the bottle was empty - I mean till it was completely read. All the characters are built very beautifully and its not like a Hindi movie that they are black or white. Everyone is in shades of grey, some less, some more. Moreover, there isn't anything extraordinary like the hero alone killing hundreds of people in the Hindi movie Gadar - everything in it appears real life like. Probably thats why I liked it more. Its pretty emotional in parts and the author has been able to express the emotions very well.
Highly recommended if someone likes reading emotional novels.