The Guardian - Nicholas Sparks
Um...
Ummmmm...
UMMMMM.....
no.
This is a shit show. Sorry, Nicholas Sparks, but it’s a shit show. I don’t even know where to start. I am going to say that I think Sparks had even himself confused while writing this. This is a quote from the author’s notes at the end of the book: “While I did enjoy the process of writing the novel, the editing required was far and away the most difficult I’ve ever had to do. From first to final draft, the novel went through eight major revisions until my editor and I were finally satisfied that the novel accomplished what it set out to do”.
EIGHT MAJOR REVISIONS! EIGHT!
Damn. I spent most of this book wondering if he even had an editor.
Let’s begin. It starts off with Julie mourning the loss of her husband, Jim, yes very sad. Her husband sends her this dog from beyond the grave, also very sad, and then flash forward to several years later and we have Julie thinking to herself, “Mike (deceased husband’s best friend) will make a woman veryyyy happy one day”. Really? Couldn’t come up with any better foreshadowing than that?
The narrator then proceeds to explain that Julie’s dog (Singer) is more like a human than a dog, understanding her when she speaks and following complicated commands. This is Nicholas Sparks’ way of telling us that the deceased husband has reincarnated into the dog to keep an eye on his widow. Sweet.
So we meet Richard, this pyscho who is a psycho for absolutely no reason, is just like any other stalker pyscho you’ve read about. I don’t even feel like going into it, I'm lazy.
Julie worked for her husband’s aunt, Mabel, who came into some mysterious money years ago and vanished for a long time and then popped back into town with no explanation and started her own business, where later she hired Julie. I was kind of thinking Sparks would mention this further along into the book, maybe tie something together with it; no, it never came back up, this is just one example of the useless information he filled this book with. (This book was entirely longer than it needed to be).
Mike had no character arc, we know nothing about his past, and no information was given about he and Jim’s friendship. Sparks introduced too many characters in this book instead of giving details about the characters he already had introduced. Quality over quantity comes to mind.
I did like the cop Jennifer, she was smart, we learned more about her than Mike. I did NOT like all of the J’s; Julie, Jennifer, Jessica, Jim, jaded... too much.
So when Jennifer figures out that Richard Franklin is NOT the stalker’s real name (GASP! REALLY?), all of that information should have hit the reader at once, instead it took several paragraphs to get the point out. We know now that his real name is Robert Bonham but at one point Jennifer is pondering how he found his wife, Jessica Franklin (?) when she ran away from him. Like I said, Sparks confused himself.
Richard really did not learn that Jennifer figured out his real name, the camera thing was actually really smart, and it would have blown his mind that he slipped up and I was looking forward to it. Another ball dropped.
That poor dog, as smart as he was Sparks really had him eating some random meat and getting poisoned. AND THEN SHOT?! Then only character I like in the book and he gets to die along with the pyscho.
And then at the end of the book Julie is just like, Mike stays over most nights, the end. Excuse me?
Oh, and Andrea is really stupid and not a realistic character.
If you liked this book, I’m sorry I dragged it through Singer’s dog shit and tried feeding it to you like the poison he was given. But, it sucked. However, with that being said I like discussing any book I’ve read, so please keep the conversation going.
