Or my opinion on Nicholas Sparks

Recently, I have been exploring Nicholas Sparks, on the recommendation of Goober. (Don’t shoot me, he picked he name himself.) I’ve read A Walk to Remember and A Bend in the Road and I have watched The Notebook and Message in a Bottle. They’ve been interesting reads/movies and I do like this author. So far, all the stories are set in North Carolina, which is fun for me, because he is describing places I know: Outer Banks vacation homes, the smell of salt water, slow and east small town life. Of course, he lives here, so that makes sense.

Now, I have never read an author before who was so very successful in making Love a main character in his novels. Seriously. An actual character, above and beyond the actual people of the story. As I read, it was an almost separate thing, the love. And that’s the rub for me of Nicholas Sparks: Love always triumphs, and yet…..there is no happily ever after ending. The people characters always end up with little holes in their hearts, unless they die. Which is, I guess, the way Love works in real life, too. Sigh.

Ok, I’ll pass out bonus points for settings and character development. I’ll give a passing mark to plot. And I’ll take away a couple of points for making the stories too realistic, because, after all, sometimes a girl still wants to believe she could be Cinderella. And I’ll read a few more of his books when I can find them in the library.