Rule Breaker!

I confess! I did it! I just read 3 Nicholas Sparks novels in less than a month...and he's not even dead!

If you read my blog regularly, you're familiar my "Rule of Dead Authors". The basic rational behind my rule is that there are so many new authors and who's to know which ones will be classics! I don't want to waste time wading through every new face on the library shelf only to find I could have been reading something that has been proven worthy of that distinction by time. Additionally, I like historical novels that were written in their own time period. I feel like I get a better idea of what it was like to live before everything was electric when it's described by someone who didn't know what it was to have electricity.

Alas...it all started when Meredith left The Wedding for me after our trip to Ohio. The Wedding is the sequel to the book made famous by the movie The Notebook. So of course I had to read The Notebook and I read A Walk to Remember, which was also made into a movie. The Wedding and A Walk to Remember made The Notebook kind of a shocker. (I'll abbreviate from here on out), TW and AWTR area both wholesome, borderline Christian books. In TW, the main character, Wilson, talks about accepting Christ as his Savior, it's all about his marriage and loving his wife (however there is a sort of side story that hints at reincarnation). AWTR is a true redemption tale (and a tissue soaking love story), and while it doesn't lay the gospel out in full, the main character, Landon, emerges faithful and believing in miracles.

The Notebook is different. I guess most people saw the movie - I did not. I guess you're not supposed to know that the guy telling the story is also the young man the story is about. Maybe that ruined it for me. Anyway, I felt like the characters were not as well developed as they should have been. It was clear that Noah and Allie were in love, but I didn't really see what they saw in each other. So he was a poet and she was an artist...and... The only character I felt was adequately developed compared with his role was Allie's fiance (I forget his name - that gives you an idea of the weight of his role!). Compared with AWTR, you knew why Landon fell in love with Jamie - her character was so fully apparent that you adored her too.

The important part of the The Notebook is Noah's faithfulness over the years and (***spoiler warning***) it's devastating to realize they had so many memories together and Allie couldn't enjoy them anymore. While TW wasn't as sensual (and therefore might not make as profitable a movie), I felt the story was more satisfying. I thought the emphasis of sex in TN was to it's weakness. I know Sparks mean for you to understand the relationship between Allie and Noah was deeper than something physical, to me, it didn't seem that way.

Sparks writes for women - all 3 of these books were chick books, but without being meaningless and trite. They are emotionally charged and mostly realistic. I might read some more of his work. His writing did make me want to go vacation in North Carolina...

Now that I have that behind me, I'm reading Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I have to admit I wasn't too excited about reading a book with "bleak" in the title. I almost skipped it to move on to Alexandre Dumas, but I felt like I just had to take it. It is suprisingly good, so far very different from other Dickens novels because the main character is female, but peppered with funny named characters and plenty of social injustice. Of course, I'm only 67 pages in - 67 out of over 800! whew!