Scrolling on Facebook was profitable for Amazon today. I came across a random post that was talking about this book. I’m in a Book Lovers group on there because I’ve been doing a lot more reading lately. The book here is going to be released sometime in October, so I (almost) immediately preordered it on Amazon. Side bar—does anyone remember when Amazon only sold books and some c.d.’s and dvds?
I have mixed feelings about this book, but they’re mixed enough for me to be willing to give it a try. I have read exactly 2 Nicholas Sparks books in my life. Probably his two most popular. First was A Walk to Remember and the second one was The Notebook. If you’ve read the books or seen the movies, or even know anything about Nicholas Sparks stories, you know without me telling you that I cried at the end of them. After two books, I realized that was probably his style. Make you invested in the characters and then break your heart at the end. I refused to read any others, even though he’s from my state and sets a lot of his stories on the coast where he lives (or used to live, I don’t know where he lives now, but I know most of the places he references in his books).
So I have sworn off Nicholas Sparks. But now let me tell you about M. Night Shyamalan. My husband and I are big fans! Here are most of his movies in case you need a refresher on who he is:
We haven’t seen all of these. We’re missing “The Last Airbender” and his most recent one, “Trap”. “Signs” is our favorite. In fact, I saw it in the theater 4 times. Twice with my husband, once with his oldest niece, and once with my mother-in-law. And we watch it pretty much every Sunday night. Don’t ask me to explain why this is our comfort movie. I really have no way to explain it. It’s just such a good movie and there’s much more to the story than just an alien invasion. We are such fans, that one of the ideas we’ve had for our vacation this year is to go to Pennsylvania and spend a couple days touring Bucks County since that’s where the movie was set. The house isn’t there anymore, but the corn field is. You can go to the book store in Newtown and the army recruiting office which is just generic office space now. The pharmacy is in a different town but looks exactly the same. There’s a whole video on YouTube that finds the filming locations.
With all of that said, it’s pretty obvious that we’re fans. Some people criticize him saying he didn’t make anything good after “Signs”, but you can’t tell us that. We agree that some of his movies are better than others, but we still love his work.
Which is precisely why I preordered this Nicholas Sparks book. I don’t know how M. Night Shyamalan was involved in the writing process. Or even how much he contributed. The tag line I saw online says it’s a “supernatural love story”. That’s enough to pique my curiosity. Folks on Facebook were joking that the twist at the end is that the ghosts come back to life. I wouldn’t rule it out. Though there will never be a twist as great as the one in “The Sixth Sense”, although I saw it for the first time knowing the end thanks to a chatty friend in high school who spoiled it for me.
Before I hit “publish” on this, I did a little more research and found a post by Nicholas Sparks that announced the book. He gives a much better synopsis:
I guess I’ll find out on October 7th if I’m going to need tissues at the end or not. Well, sometime after the 7th when I finish it. My days of being able to read a book all in one day are long gone.
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