I managed to grow up (or in literary parlance, come of age) without having read a single Nicholas Sparks book. Sparks has been in the biz of writing dramatic romance novels for the past 20 years, basically from the time I learned to read ’til now. Eleven of Sparks’s novels have been made into movies, none of which I’ve seen. I lived in a Sparksless, loveless world, and honestly, that was fine by me.
But with the 20th anniversary of Sparks’s first book, The Notebook, this year, as well as the Oct. 4 publication of Two by Two, Sparks’s newest, 19th novel, I could ignore him no more. So I got copies of all of Sparks’s books that had been turned into movies (and were therefore presumably his best-known), as well as his latest, and read all 12 of them in chronological order in 2 1/2 weeks. That’s a grand total of 3,792 pages, in case you’re wondering. Here are my thoughts.
The Notebook (1996)
Because I am a person with access to internet and Ryan Gosling memes, I know enough about The Notebook to feel confident about what I’m getting into. But upon reading, I see I do not. Your bae Ryan Gosling (known here as Noah) thinks about the fling he had the summer he was 19 every day. For 14 years. That’s 5,113-ish days (not sure about the leap years). And said fling only takes up 2 1/2 pages of the 207-page book. How is everyone cool with this???
But Noah’s devotion pays off because Rachel McAdams (Allie) picks Noah instead of a boring piece of toast named Lon, even though Allie and Lon planned a 500-person wedding. Fast-forward half a century, Allie has Alzheimer’s, but thanks to Noah’s stalwart devotion, the progression of her disease is delayed. I don’t think it checks out scientifically, but what do I know, I’m not a doctor!
And then they make out, get naked, and then it cuts to black. Old people in love! And ~making love~! Woo!
I know The Notebook is supposed to be the ultimate love story or whatever, but the premise is pretty flimsy. Noah is a man who nurtures his one-sided love for years and years, and thinks she’s perfect even when she’s obviously not (no one is), and is hot, and is into poetry, and writes her long, flowery letters, even when she doesn’t write back? Shelf this one under fantasy.
Message in a Bottle (1998)
Message in a Bottle is about a hot divorcée mom, Theresa, who becomes obsessed with a man whose message in a bottle she intercepts in Cape Cod. She uses very rudimentary internet (the year is 1997), the telephone, and ~gumption~ to discover the man, Garrett’s whereabouts. Despite falling in love, they can’t be together because Garrett is still in love with his dead wife Catherine, the intended recipient of the letters he throws into the ocean. But Catherine’s dead and Theresa’s alive, so Garrett comes to his senses.
But wait! He needs to send Catherine one last letter before he can pursue Theresa in good faith. So he goes out, in a middle of a storm, and then dies. Theresa knows all this because she receives a letter from him posthumously. It isn’t enough for Sparks to just kill off the love interest; he also has to twist the knife. At this point, I’m pissed I read this book at all. WHAT’S THE POINT OF A DEAD LOVE INTEREST, HUH?
In the final scene of the book, Theresa sends the now-deceased Garrett a message in a bottle. And so begins the horror story the cUrSe oF tHe BoTtLe!!! OooOooooOoh!!!! (Jk.)
R.I.P. Garrett. You died a senseless death.
A Walk to Remember (1999)
The story starts with a punk-ass kid named Landon who’s roped into starring in the Christmas play opposite the dorky pastor’s kid Jamie, both seniors at Beaufort High School. Even though Jamie references the Bible or God almost every time she talks, Landon finds himself attracted to her because of her good heart, and also it turns out she’s cute when she has her hair down and isn’t wearing a dumpy sweater. Things are going great! Until Jamie reveals she’s been dying of cancer this whole time.
If I hadn’t been so mad about Garrett dying in Message in a Bottle, I might have cared, but I used up my (extremely limited) reserves of emotion already, and I’m only on book three. I also have a hunch that killing off love interests might be a classic Sparks move. And given that Jamie gave all sorts of warning signs (starting with the sassy "You have to promise you won’t fall in love with me"), I do not find Jamie’s death especially surprising or gut-wrenching.
Tbh, the most shocking part of the book is that Landon and Jamie fall in love, even though he hangs with the cool kids and she’s a religious nut with no friends. I would love to know what utopian high school Nicholas Sparks went to.
R.I.P. Jamie, sweet angel.
Nights in Rodanthe (2002)
Right off the bat, I have a feeling this is going to be a sad story. On page two: "despite all that has happened in the years that had passed since then, Adrienne still held tight to the belief that love was the essence of a full and wonderful life."
Aaaaaand I’m right. Adrienne recalls five days she spent in Rodanthe watching an inn for her innkeeper friend (side note: is there a more charming profession?). There, she falls in love with the inn’s only guest, a retired surgeon named Paul. Their realization of love occurs over the course of two days. Yep.
Once their five days are up, Paul, who’s off to Ecuador to reunite with his estranged son, promises Adrienne he’ll return to her in a year. Reminder: They spent five days together in Rodanthe. To see one another again after a year is the equivalent of 73 five-day stays.
Anyway, because I’m hip to the ways of Nicholas Sparks now, Paul predictably dies, predictably at the worst time possible — right before he’s supposed to see Adrienne at Christmas. Instead Adrienne gets a letter from his son notifying her of his death by mudslide. Merry freaking Christmas, Adrienne!
R.I.P. Paul. Let’s be real though, you and Adrienne never would have made it.
Dear John (2006)
Dear John starts off with an Army dude spying on his ex and reminiscing on their love. This is supposed to be romantic, perhaps, and not scary.
Backtrack to six years prior. John is on leave from the Army when he encounters Savannah, another religious good girl who is like Sweet Angel Jamie 2.0. John is utterly charmed by Savannah, but at the end of the week (yes, they fall in love in one week, duh), he goes back to do Army stuff. While John is off protecting people from terrorism, Savannah dumps him via letter because she’s fallen in love with someone else. Pretty stone-cold, imho.
Still, John’s in love with Savannah and eventually goes to see her. At this point, I have a hunch/hope that the plot twist is going to be that John is actually dead and is watching Savannah in some afterlife ghost state.
But nope! Savannah is married to her best friend, Tim, which was so obviously coming that I thought it was a red herring. Also, Tim has cancer. Again with the cancer!
Anyway, Tim is all, "You can have your girl back after I die," but obviously once the dying guy gives his blessing to move in on "his girl," things get weird, so John sells his dad’s coin collection to get Tim top-class medical care. Tim lives another day with Savannah as his wife, and John is left watching them "on the hillside," like a scary villain in a horror movie. Not at all an alarming picture.
The Choice (2007)
I’m now six books into the challenge, and I’m feeling fatigued. Each story has distinct details (people in different age groups, settings in different eras, deaths by different causes, etc.) but none of the characters — and as a result, the stories — have been especially compelling. But something is happening to me ... I feel like I’m genuinely liking The Choice?! Is it the book? Is it Stockholm syndrome? Who’s to say!
Gabby, unlike many of the good, virginal girls Sparks has written about, seems actually kind of real. She gets mad, makes a fool of herself, and frequently blurts out things she shouldn’t. As I read on, I realize the reason I like the book is because I appreciate and relate to Gabby’s neurotic personality, which leads to some uncomfortable introspection (Ha! Ha!).
Back to the plot, the titular choice is not whether Gabby will choose boring boyfriend Kevin or hot, sporty Travis, but whether Travis should honor Gabby’s wish for a do-not-resuscitate after she enters a coma following a car accident. Heavy stuff! But I’ve learned that when something seems sad in the Sparksiverse, something good will happen. So when Travis can’t bring himself to fulfill the DNR even though Gabby is in a months-long coma, Gabby miraculously wakes back up. I feel ... happy for them?! Aw, guys!
The Lucky One (2008)
Logan Thibault finds a photograph of a pretty lady while training in the Army and the photograph sees him through several tours in Iraq. He then spends five months walking from Colorado to North Carolina to find her. Based on clues from one photo.
That might seem scary, but luckily (for Thibault) his creepster tendencies are overshadowed by the lady, Elizabeth’s, ex’s. The line between what’s charming (the man who hunts down a random woman but is a good guy) and not (the man who follows around his ex-wife but is a bad guy) seems remarkably thin. To help differentiate, Sparks goes out of his way to amp up Elizabeth’s ex’s dislikability to make it clear that Thibault is lovable. So the ex follows Elizabeth around too, but also takes photos of skinny-dipping girls and spikes women’s beer with vodka so he can rape them.
Anyway, Elizabeth gets over the fact that Thibault tracked her down, her ex dies in a hurricane, and everyone is happy. Sparks tries to pull some last-minute trickery to make you think Thibault died instead of the ex, but as a seasoned Sparks reader, I could not be fooled.
The Last Song (2009)
Ronnie is a rebellious New York teen visiting her stupid dad in some stupid town in North Carolina. I feel Ronnie — I, too, am over North Carolina. But Ronnie hates it because she’s young ’n’ rebellious, unlike me, who has grown weary of reading about North Carolina, Home of All the Drama You Could Ever Think Of. But then it turns out the whole reason Ronnie’s spending the summer with her dad is because he’s been diagnosed with stomach cancer and has very little time left to live! So he’s been acting super chill all summer in an attempt to have one last, nice summer with his kids!
If you feel any sort of familial guilt or come from a family with a tradition of filial piety (check and check), this book will be the saddest. I CRIED, OK?? I’m not afraid to admit on the internet that I cried because of a Nicholas Sparks book. There’s also other stuff about a boy named Will, but who cares. THE DAD IS DEAD.
My salty, sad tears aside, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth met on the set of the movie for The Last Song. So thank god for that.
Safe Haven (2010)
With Safe Haven, the thriller-like qualities of Sparks’s past books finally culminate into an actual thriller. Yas! Give in to your natural impulses, Sparks! Repeating the success of The Lucky One of having an actual human villain (as opposed to, like, cancer), Safe Haven features Katie, a woman on the run after escaping an abusive marriage. Her husband, who works in the Boston PD, is a possessive, violent drunk who holds all the power in their relationship — until Katie manages to run away, exhibiting her resiliency, smarts, etc. etc. Honestly, if you’ve watched movies like Fear or Enough, you’ll get the gist. The important thing here is that Katie forms a friendship with her neighbor, Jo. WHO TURNS OUT TO BE THE GHOST OF KATIE’S BOYFRIEND’S WIFE. A MOTHERFUCKING GHOST.
Just, wow. 👻
The Best of Me (2011)
OK. Still reeling from Safe Haven (Jo was a ghost all along!!!), I commence straight to The Best of Me. And maybe I’m still too hyped, but I can’t figure out what. Is. Happening?!
Amanda and Dawson (lol) are high-school sweethearts who broke up because she was a small-town socialite and he was trash from the wrong side of the tracks, ofc. They reunite 25 years later because Dawson’s surrogate father has died and rediscover that sweet, sweet teenage love. Amanda’s real-life responsibilities (her kids) prevent her from running away with Dawson despite their true and pure love. So after a bomb-ass weekend, Amanda leaves him. And because Sparks can’t leave well enough alone, Dawson is shot and killed, and his heart is donated to Amanda’s son, who is coincidentally in a car accident that weekend. If you’re like, "What," same.
R.I.P. Dawson. Everyone, remember to register to be an organ donor! Do it for Dawson.
The Longest Ride (2013)
The Longest Ride starts off with a monologue by a 91-year-old Jewish man, Ira (he is Sparks’s first Jewish character; incidentally, Sparks was sued for allegedly being anti-Semitic, racist, and homophobic one year after publishing The Longest Ride). Ira’s been in a car accident and tbh, things are not looking good for him. To pass the time (?), he recounts his lifetime with his one true love, Ruth, which is told in flashbacks. In present time, there’s a budding romance between Sophia, a college student, and Luke, a champion bull rider.
For 90 percent of the book, I cannot tell why Ira is a part of the story. At the very end of the book, he dies and his super-expensive and important art collection ends up going to cash-strapped Luke in an extremely random and tenuous manner.
Upon finishing the novel, I’m still not convinced Ira is needed in this story. Luke could have just as easily won the lottery or found box of buried treasure, if you’re going for that deus ex machina shit. And it would have saved at least a hundred pages of reading! But then again, 11 of my books haven’t been made into movies ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
In any case, R.I.P. Ira. Bless your generous spirit. May I find an Ira of my own someday, amen.
Two by Two (2016)
The first 200 pages of this tome is a slow march toward divorce (note: Nicholas Sparks and his wife divorced in 2015), and as such, there isn’t a ton of romancing in this novel. After Russell quits his job to start his own company, imperiling their lifestyle, stay-at-home mom Vivian has a snit and finds a job immediately, despite not having worked in the six years since she gave birth to their daughter. Bravo, Vivian — to some, she may appear bossy; to others, she’s a boss. Two by Two is told from a man’s perspective, so you can guess which one she is.
Russell, who is not yet a woke bae, is super dazed and confused because he has to do things like get his daughter dressed in the mornings and take her to her extracurriculars (although, tbf, she’s a 6-year-old and her schedule is more packed than mine).
Luckily, the tortuously slow unveiling of their deteriorating marriage is broken up by Sparks’s old friend, cancer! Despite a fakeout situation with Russell’s father, it is clear that it is in fact Russell’s sister, Marge, who has "the cancer," as it is repeatedly called in the book. She dies, but teaches everyone something, ameliorating the no-good, very-bad mess that Russell’s life has become (no wife, the threat of no daughter, a business that can’t get off the ground, etc.). And so Russell ends up with the girl (not the wife, but his ex-girlfriend who was The One after all), the other girl (his daughter; his wife acquiesces to joint custody), and a successful biz. Man shall prevail.
So there it is. One more relationship established, one more person dead. And so comes an end to my time reading Nicholas Sparks, a time best measured in the following:
Final Tallies
On-page deaths: 9
Ghosts: 6
Cases of cancer: 5
Car accidents: 4
Authentic local seafood shacks: 3
Romantic letters sent/received: Honestly, too many to count.
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