Phew…It took a while to get through this one. But that’s not a bad thing! I just finished the first Nicholas Sparks novel I’ve read in years. I started reading it over the summer on the beach and was finally able to finish it last weekend on a plane home from Chicago. Click the ‘read more’ button to read my full review.
So like any Nicholas Sparks novel, this story is about a boy and a girl. Colin has a dark past full of violence and arrests but is trying to start a new life. Maria is a hard-working lawyer and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Yet her dark past threatens her everyday as well. They meet at a chance encounter and (of course) start to fall in love. But then both of their pasts start to ruin things and things get complicated, as they always do in these sorts of novels.
I had heard excellent things about this book, but honestly it let me down a little. I love the conflict (which I don’t want to spoil) and how Colin acts like her protector for most of the book. I kept imagining how they would do the movie of this book while I was reading, because theres no doubt in my mind that this will totally be a movie one day.
I like how it had some unexpected twists and funny moments. But I also felt like parts of the story were sped up or moved through too quickly, especially the ending! And I get it, its good to leave things kind of open ended at the end of a book, but I would have loved to see more “falling action” and “resolution”. I felt like this book ended during the same chapter as the climax, which is weird because the entire book was close to 500 pages long.
I would recommend this book if you’re just looking for a fluffy, light romance novel to pass the time, but I don’t think it was all it was cracked up to be.
Have you read this book before? Comment below!
Thanks for reading! xx