I’m a Nicholas Sparks fan. I can’t help it. Usually, I really like love his books; not just for the love story, but for the characters and the way he manages to bring them off the pages. While I admit some of his stories have melodramatic elements, most tend to stay pretty straight and true to a good story, or so I think, at least. But unfortunately, The Best of Me is an exception to that.
Dawson and Amanda were high school sweethearts. He came from one of the town’s oldest and most violent families and had nothing, while she came from a rich family steeped in tradition. But the two of them found common ground and eventually fell in love in high school. They broke up when she went off to college, a decision made by Dawson because he believed she deserved the chance to live her dreams. Okay. It’s fine here, really. Sparks knows how to take us back to the days of teenage summer love, and it works well. Dawson and Amanda are brought back together for one weekend, to the town they grew up in, because of the death of an old friend. Feelings resurface, not just between them, but from other relatives in town who know how to hold a grudge.
The tagline/summary for this book pulled me in simply because I was curious to see how Sparks would handle writing a book about two people who, once in love as teenagers, faced each other again at completely different stages in life. I found it really intriguing to look at the ideas of love lost, and looking at an old partner with new experience but old memories. I thought Sparks could do something really interesting with it. But the added “danger” of Dawson’s troubled past and crazy family sort of killed the whole thing. The story descended into melodrama pretty quickly in the last half, and it lost me. I was with Dawson and Amanda until then. I felt their surprise, resistance, and love for seeing one another, and was rooting for them to be together but also trying to figure out how it could be possible, given their current situations in life. My problem is, Sparks didn’t really answer that question. Instead, a chain of events that seemed soap-opera-esque lead to what was supposed to be a “twist” conclusion, but something I saw coming a mile away. I was dearly hoping I was wrong. But I wasn’t. And unfortunately, this book just didn’t cut it for me. Once it turned from a study of a relationship to this ridiculous domino effect of events, I just wasn’t willing to follow it anymore.
I really do like Nicholas Sparks. I hope he can find a way to go back to books like True Believer (although he completely ruined it for me with a sequel, whose existence I usually deny), or even The Notebook. I know all “romance” novels come with some elements of melodrama, and that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t escalate and overtake the entire story. Sparks has usually been good about tip-toeing that line. Also, I’ve always admired him for making the characters and relationships so strong that I can usually look past the bits of soapyness. Unfortunately, I couldn’t this time. Hopefully next time turns out better.
The Road to Medical School 