The Kite Runner, a bestselling first novel by Khaled Hosseini. It is now a film that has made headlines for the treatment of its young actors in their native Afghanistan.
What I find most remarkable is how Hosseini crafted some engaging and credible children for the first half of the book, and yet laboured the second half with a magical redemption child of the most cloying and unbelievable type. The contrast is amazing.