The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The novels that touch me the deepest are the ones of which I often have the least to say. This one... oh this one is untouchable. It left me bereft in so many places. Reminded me quite a bit of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, just in the way the characters and relationships are so throroughly developed and how quickly and strongly I became attached to them. I picked this unforgettable scene because it is what springs to mind everytime I think about this book:

Then I saw Baba on our roof. He was standing on the edge, pumping both of his fists. hollering and clapping. And that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last.

But he was doing something now, motioning with his hands in an urgent way. Then I understood. "Hassan, we --- "

"I know," he said, breaking our embrace. "Inshallah, we'll celebrate later. Right now, I'm going to run that blue kite for you," he said. He dropped the spool and took off running, the hem of his green chapan dragging in the snow behind him.

"Hassan!" I called. "Come back with it!"

He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "For you a thousand times over!" he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph. (66-67)

(2003. New York: Riverhead Books, 2004)