Today I read Nicholas Sparks' Dear John. I needed a light, happy, lovey read and figured Sparks would hit the spot.It didn't. Maybe I should have taken more warning from the title. He set up a fairly depressing start, included abouted 20 pages of happiness, and then let it just roll on downhill. The literature, morals, and basic ideas are inspiring, but the story line is depressing. Here are some "highlights:" [Spoiler alert!]
- Boy finds Girl on a short two-week break, the best two weeks of his life
- Girl says she will wait for Boy while he fights in Iraq
- Boy and Girl spend most of book separated, teary and sad
- Girl marries someone else
- Boy comes back to Girl, finds her married to Dying Man
- Dying Man tells Boy, "Marry Girl when I am dead"
- Instead, Boy secretly gives up his inheritance and savings to cure Dying Man
- End: Boy still loves Girl, but walks away supposedly happy that Girl is happily married to No-Longer-Dying-Man
Sorry, now you know the end. Perhaps Sparks got enough complaints that his books were too unrealistic with their happily-ever-after-endings, and decided to throw us a dark one. Personally, I like depending on Nicholas Sparks for an occassional happy, lovely story when I need one. Darn.
P.S. If you have any good suggestions of nice, light-hearted reads (preferably fiction) please, please leave me a comment. Obviously, I could use some help picking books.
3 comments:
Love Beyond Time by Nancy Campbell Allen.
my grandma bought it for me YEARS ago and i remember liking it. it's one of those that time warps you back in time. it's also an LDS author with church context here and there, so i think you can get it at desseret books.
The Samaria Series with the first book Angelica by Sharon Shinn, bit of sci fi but you can read the books like candy, much like those vampire books...
I just finished These Is My Words by Nancy Turner, I really like it.
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