be impressed!

So - for all of my whining and complaining about finishing MIAB, you would think that the next Sparks book "A Walk to Remember" would be just as painful. Not so! I read AWTR in just 1 and a half days....I guess third time really is the charm for Sparks. Which makes me a bit nervous to read the rest of his books.

"A Walk to Remember" is far and away the best of the three Sparks books that I have read so far. It isn't what I thought it would be about at all - for some reason I had it in my mind that it was about teenage pregnancy in the 1950s. Someone was REALLY far off on the content.

The first thing that I really liked is that there was a clear narrator from the beginning of the story - an old man looking back 40 years ago at the year that "changed his life." It was really nice to have that out of the way and not spend a majority of the time reading trying to figure out who the hell is telling the story.

The year that changed his life was a bit dramatic, but sweet at the same time. The "cool" kid in town falls in love with the preacher's daughter, who he only starts noticing because she grew some boobies.

Turns out, it was all part of the "Lord's plan" (according the the PD) for the CK to fall in love with her. There are some sappy moments where they hold hands and kiss for the very first time - all very romantic in an innocent way. But, there is something very ominous looming about her - why is the PD holding back from the cool kid? And why doesn't she want to go to college?

Turns out, she has leukemia and she is slowly dying - and all she wants is to get married....because it is part of the Lord's plan. So the cool kid gives her what she wants, and she gets married and everyone who made fun of her for years because her dad was a preacher felt guilty and cry over her.

The one downfall of the book though is that it ends right after the two get married - something that I was a bit disappointed by. I wish that Sparks had taken another 10-15 pages and tied it all back together. It would have been nice - I didn't really grasp at the end why we jumped back to retell the story at that particular moment, but oh well.

Now, I know that at the beginning of this journey, I said that I was going to read the books in order. But, I can't. I just got "Dear John" at the library because the hold was a lot shorter than it originally said it would be. So dear readers, "Dear John" is next!

save me!

People who know me well know that I love to read. I was the kid in elementary school who got in trouble for reading while the teacher was teaching - the kid that knew every way how to try and hide a book in their desk when they were supposed to be doing something else. My mom tells me that I don't just read books I "devour" them. In sixth grade I did read a different chapter book every day...

So - it does come as a big surprise to me that I can't finish "Message in a Bottle." I'm ALMOST finished - but I keep finding excuses for not reading it - knitting projects (I made a really cool scarf!), studying (really actually a lot of fun), reading the second "The Girl.." book (fabulous read - though I did get really scared reading it by myself in my parents' basement at 2 in the morning). Today, I even sunk so low that I am writing lesson plans INSTEAD of reading MIAB (I like calling the book that). I think if I were given the choice, I might rather go to the dentist and get a bunch of work done over finishing this book. That is a bad sign.

The characters in the book are mildly ridiculous - Theresa is suffering from not being able to find a man who understands her - Garrett from loosing his wife unexpectedly. I sympathize more with Garrett, but am frustrated that when they have intimate moments, Garrett's mind wonders back to his dead wife. When they finally do the nasty, all Sparks can say is how it has been 3 years for both of them and that they have opened something that has been closed for so long (I think I threw up a bit when I read that).

If you remember, Theresa found Garrett after discovering his messages to his dead wife that he puts in bottles. SHE HASN'T TOLD HIM THAT YET! Um....that's not a good idea....but yet, she's upset that he isn't sure if he wants to commit to her. Shouldn't she be more worried that she might loose him when he finds out how much of a creeper she has been?

Then, there is the distance thing - he lives in North Carolina (and has never left) and she lives in Boston...and has a 12 year old son. I just don't see this working out for them. Theresa has to go back to work, so she flies back up to Boston with the hopes of seeing him again soon. Let us also keep in mind that they have only actually been together for FOUR days at this point in time....but she wants him to be in love with her.

I think I have to just stop reading this book. It is too painful, and if I would rather go to the dentist or write lesson plans on a beautiful day instead of sitting outside and reading, then I need to move on to Sparks' next book. I will still watch the movie - it HAS to be better than this.

Maybe I'll just chalk the horridness of this book up to the fact that I checked it out in LARGE PRINT....yeah....that's it! If you want to know how MIAB ends - go look it up on Wikipedia!

still working....

I'm here in the Phoenix airport waiting for my plane, so I decided that it would be the perfect moment to let everyone know how my affair with Nicholas Sparks is going.

"Message in a Bottle" reminds me more and more of "Sleepless in Seattle," only I really think that I enjoyed Sleepless a lot more. There are so many similarities - Theresa (the main character in MIAB) is touched by a letter she found at the ocean - Annie (Meg Ryan in SIS) is touched by a caller on a radio show - they both work for newspapers. Both have overweight best friends who encourage their "obsession" with men they have never met. As a side note - I am excited for the movie MIAB and Theresa's overweight best friend - will she be better than Rosie? Can she be better?

Most of all, they both ACT on their obsessions - Theresa flies down to Garrett (the man) and pretends that she doesn't know why she's there to him. They're falling in love and it sort of makes me want to puke. In SIS Annie flies to Seattle to meet Sam (Tom Hanks) and freaks out and walks away. Not to mention that they both use their connections with the newspaper they work for and the Internet to creep on the men of their obsessions.

I do have a feeling that Theresa isn't going to get the happy ending that Annie did. It is just a hunch - also the foreshadowing at the beginning was a huge clue.

(As a mildly embarrassing side note - I am now mildly hooked on the second "The Girl..." book and it is even better than the first! Could that be possible?)

Off to be touched with more "poignant love stories."

I'm working....

I promise that I am reading "Message in a Bottle." Really - I am.

The main character, Theresa, has all kinds of issues - she was in love with David - they had a kid - and then OH NO! he cheated on her. To add salt to her wound - when David left her (alone with the kid), he didn't take the mistress. He went and found someone else! Sparks also seems a bit obsessed with her boobies - it's like he just found out what they were, so he wants to tell the whole world about them.

I can tell you that something tragic happens to Theresa - who knows what it is, but I have a feeling it regards Garrett. Garrett is the writer of these horribly sappy letters that he tosses out into the ocean in bottles - doesn't he know that the ocean has enough litter in it already? Anyway, Theresa finds one of these "messages in a bottle" and becomes obsessed with it. Why won't anyone love her the way Garrett loves Catherine (who is the person the letters are addressed to)?

And that is as far as I've gotten. I got a bit sidetracked with another book - yes, I've been cheating on Nicholas Sparks. In the past two days I read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." I couldn't put it down, and it was an absolutely incredible read. I highly recommend it to everyone, even if you're not a big fan of thriller books. I'm usually not, but it was so gripping I couldn't stop.

I'll go back to my large print book again today. But first, I need to go hiking with the family in beautiful Montana.

THE MOVIE

Awards won: MTV's Best Kiss - unfortunately, I think I missed the best movie kiss of 2004 because I was folding my laundry. Will my life go on?

It has taken me 3 days to watch the movie version of THE NOTEBOOK, and sadly the book is way better. I didn't think that was possible, but the movie really was that terrible.

One thing that I am really bothered by about this movie is that Allie, as an older person, has dementia instead of Alzheimer's (which she has in the book). The thing is, with dementia, she would remember some things instead of nothing at all - movie-Allie was so clueless about everything. She wasn't ever frustrated about not knowing anything about herself, which was REALLY frustrating for me. If I don't know who I am, but I seem to be okay with, I hope that I'm drunk or on really great drugs. Movie-Allie didn't seem to be on either...

The focus of the book is when Allie and Noah meet again, while the movie jumps around a lot. It sort of drove me crazy watching to "kids" pretending to fight and act like grown-ups, though I did enjoy watching them undress before they did the nasty at age 17. Each of them was standing on a different side of the blanket and the camera would pan back and forth as each of them took off an article of clothing. It wasn't very romantic at all, but it did make me laugh!

The movie took place in South Carolina during the 1940's, which is totally fine, but the actors all slipped in and out of Southern accents. It was quite entertaining because the accents would be used for a while and then disappear.

Also, would a Southern belle really go to school at Sarah Lawrence in the 40's? I thought that she would go somewhere a bit more Southern...who knows. But apparently in the 40's in Charleston black couples and white couples would dance together in fancy supper clubs. Who knew that segregation didn't exist in supper clubs?

I thought that I was going to make it through the movie without wanting to barf until the last 3 minutes of the movie. That's when Noah slipped into Allie's room in the nursing home where she REMEMBERED him (a bit suspect), but okay. So they start talking, and Allie asks him what is going to happen and they talk about love going on. Then she says something about how she wishes that their love could take them away together. Guess what? It does...sorry if I spoiled it for you, but I couldn't believe that they both actually pass away when they look so healthy! I guess that's the power of true love...

As a random side-note - C3 came into the room at the end and watched and laughed with me, which was good.

Final thoughts: THE NOTEBOOK was a silly book and a stupid movie. Some parts were entertaining, others were snort-worthy, while some were just down-right dumb. It was not a terribly realistic movie or book, but at least I got a bit of an ab workout by laughing at both!

watching

I am getting ready to watch THE NOTEBOOK movie, and I am a bit nervous. I remember seeing it in the theaters when it first came out and being upset about two things. First, that the two main characters couldn't manage to dance in time to the music. The second thing that bothered me that was the movie got me so worked up I cried. Hopefully that won't be the case today.

Also - I went to the library and checked out Message in a Bottle so I can start reading it this evening. The only copy they had though was LARGE PRINT. Maybe I will be able to read it even faster!!

...the end

Last night I finished THE NOTEBOOK - which didn't take me quite as long as I had expected it to. Just to let you know, if you haven't read this book before and are interested in reading it, you might not want to read this post!

The overall story is sweet, but doesn't all really fit together. For one thing, at the beginning it is really hard to figure out the point of view - is it Allie (the heroine), is it Noah (the hero), or is it some random mystery person (a stalker peeping in the windows)? I finally figured out that Allie and Noah had "written" that portion of the book together, but the point of view still didn't make any sense to me - who is writing down the story? I don't know....

There were also some great moments - can you figure out what the hero is doing in this sentence? He strummed [the guitar] once, adjusted the tension of two strings, then strummed again. This time it sounded about right... Why couldn't he have just said - Noah tuned his stupid guitar and started to play?

Some of his writing reminded me a lot of when Chester (not his real name) was in seventh grade. At that time, Chester felt that to be a better writer, you needed to use big words. So - he would go to the thesaurus and look for the words that were similar to what he wanted, but were bigger, and therefore much more impressive. Reading THE NOTEBOOK at times felt like reading Chester's writing from seventh grade - but Chester has become an incredibly profound writer now....

Sparks also has run-on sentences that I had to read a number of times before I figured out what the hell he was trying to say. This doesn't make a great novel - it just confuses the reader!

There were a few things that made me a bit perturbed in the story as well. For one, Noah takes Allie on a "romantic" canoe ride after they reconnect. He rows - she watches him row in a canoe. Come on - those things are not very easy to row by yourself. This isn't the part that bothered me though. He canoes her to a lake where there are a ton of Canada geese and Trumpeter swans together. Fine, sort of believable. But then, they row around the lake and she touches the swans. And the swans let her. Really!??! Doesn't he know that swans are actually fairly nasty creatures in real life? Sheesh.

The next thing that bothered me is that Noah reads this story to Allie every day because she is suffering from the late stages of Alzheimer's, which is really quite sad for him. Props to them for moving into a nursing home though. I was a bit worried for a while that they were still going to be living in their "amazing" house. Noah restored it at the beginning of the story, and I'm pretty sure that it is the sight where they first did the nasty. Not the point.

One particular day (coincidentally the day our story takes place) Allie remembers - and tells Noah that she loves him and that she will always love him, even after she forgets him again. I don't know if that can really happen with Alzheimer patients, but I find it highly suspect. THEN, just to make the whole story even gooshier (which isn't a word, I know, but I can't come up with one that describes my feelings), on the night of their forty-ninth anniversary, Noah goes and visits Allie in her room. And guess what? You've got it - SHE REMEMBERS HIM! It was a snort/groan worthy moment.

Also, Sparks sort of disses science and doctors at one point when a nurse tells Noah that she knows why Allie isn't as affected by Alzheimer's as she could be. That's because she and the other nurses understand the power of true love - something she says the doctors don't understand. I did snort out loud when I read that line.

Bottom line: cute story. Not terribly believable, and not horribly written.

I'm waiting for the movie to come in the mail, which I am excited for. Two of my three J's will be happy to know that I am looking forward to watching the movie again. To my third J - I know it will be more absurd than the first time! Yipiee!!

Next book I have the honor of reading: Message in a bottle.

the beginning...

So today I went to the Library and finally was able to get "THE NOTEBOOK." (In the dust jacket the title of the book is bold and capitalized, so I felt I needed to follow suit)

This book was first published in 1996 and the catch line is this:

A man with a faded, well-worn notebook open in his lap.
A woman experiencing a morning ritual she doesn't understand.
Until he begins to read to her.

I haven't experienced such a cheesy catch line in quite a while when trying to choose a book to read. This one made me snort in the middle of the Library and then I started laughing aloud when I found out that he was "inspired" by the journals of his wife's "beloved grandparents." Really?

I feel privileged that I am reading a first edition - I think that reading it will be even more meaningful because of it.

Off to begin reading "one of the most poignant and compelling love stories you will ever read..."

Starting...

I love to read - and I love to make fun of things. These two loves will combine this summer in my readings of Nicholas Sparks' books. As I read the books, I will be sharing my thoughts and reviews of the books and the movies that go with them.

First up: The Notebook. I'm going in chronological order of books written, not movies produced. I've already seen the movie and I just loved the part where the two main characters danced in the street - the way they danced in time to the music moved me to tears. I am looking forward to watching it again!