Before going anywhere with this review I would like to say that I love Nicholas Sparks. He has brought tears to my eyes by his heart wrenching stories many times. But it really pains me to say that I did not like this book. I am so disappointed.
The premise, in short, is as follows. Denise, a single woman in her late twenties has a 4 year old son, Kyle, who has learning disabilities. Denise is juggling her evening shift at a local diner and is also managing to home school her son Kyle to improve his language understanding and speaking abilities.
On a stormy weather one night, Denise’s car skids and bangs against a tree. She falls unconscious. When she wakes up she finds that Kyle has disappeared.
Taylor is a volunteer fireman who finds her unconscious in her car. He and the other fireman manage to search and find Kyle from a swamp and it is very obvious that Taylor, being the hero of the novel, is instrumental in finding him.
So far so good. All this happens in the first 100 pages or less of this novel. The rest of the novel is how they fall in love and how Taylor manages to overcome his issues from the past and how they live happily ever after.
My main complain here, I never thought I would say this for a Nicholas Sparks novel, is the writing. It’s too cheesy. Don’t get me wrong, I love cheesy, but this is *bad* cheesy. It’s like he was trying too hard. ‘The Rescue’ lacks the easy and non-pretentious writing of ‘The message in the bottle’.
After the first hundred pages the book kind of dragged on and on and on. I really did not understand how Taylor’s problems from the past kept him from getting too close to Denise.
Finally, I thought Nicholas Sparks tried to explain things a little too much. I am intelligent enough to read in between the lines, thank you very much. I don’t need a step by step explanation of why the characters are doing what they are doing.
Even though I did not like this book, I will certainly read another book by him, albeit with a little caution.
If you want to read a nice, small, formula romance book do take a look at these books by James Patterson. These are 2 of my favorite romance novels.
1) Suzanne’s diary for Nicholas
2) Sam’s letters to Jennifer
Book-Shelved 
Nicholas Sparks is wildly popular but his books are all pretty much the same.
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My little sister loves James Patterson’s books 🙂
My tastes are a little too oriented towards Fantasy and Scifi though!
I’m accumulating a huge pile of “still to read” tomes at the moment! Must hurry up and read more! lol
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Kathy, may be, but I would like to think there are a couple of exceptions 🙂
the last books I read by him was years back and then I did not read that much and now I am unable to tell whether he always wrote like that or my taste has changed.
Jason: May the Chrsitmas holidays will give you enough time to read.
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I really do understand how you feel. I’ve had the very same thing happen to me with a favorite author. I loved his last book though, THE LUCKY ONE. I thought it was great! 🙂 Have you had a chance to read it yet?
I am a HUGE Patterson fan, but haven’t read these two. Guess I will have to put them on my list for 2009! Thanks for the referral!
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I enjoyed most of Sparks’ books, though I haven’t read them all yet. I think The Notebook is one of my favourites so far.
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