Book #48: The Wish Maker

Title: The Wish Maker
Author: Ali Sethi

Do you ever read the reviews on the back of a book's cover and later wish you hadn't? One of the reviewers compared the book to The Kite Runner, which unfairly amped up my expectations, I guess.

But really, it just wasn't that great a book. Sethi tells the story of Zaki Shirazi and his cousin Samar, growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s, against the backdrop of Muslim feminism and the rise and fall of Benazir Bhutto. But there's no magic in the story, and it dragged on and on. I kept reading just because I was waiting for something great to happen, but it never did. Sethi wrote the book as a 23-year-old Harvard grad, and my guess is that it draws heavily from his own experience, but it's really hard to say. But I will say this, The Kite Runner it's not.