A Prayer for Owen Meany

Memoir-like tale of childhood through young adulthood, told by a young man whose life revolves around his extraordinary best friend. Ideas of fate, prophecy, and religion figure heavily into the story, and it explores the idea of how much a person's beliefs can influence their fate.

The narrative flips around in time a lot. The reader knows what the big events will be before they occur in story order, but you get the details gradually. This playing with the order of events plays along with the themes of fate.

As with all John Irving, there's lots of humor and character development.