Book Reviews #13

The Choice - Nicholas Sparks

I'd downloaded this book around Christmas time but not read it as I had book group reading to do. I was delighted to have this waiting for me after I'd finally finished the unbearable pile of poo that is Eat, Pray, Love (see book reviews #12), Nicholas Sparks can never be described as high brow, he's not a great literary author, just a writer who does a damn good job at writing stuff you can quaff like a mediumly priced Pinot grigio! And boy did I quaff this, 2 days, maybe 3 at the most and I was done, I very nearly stayed up late last night to finish it, having gotten to a point in the book where I went, 'What? Oh my god!'. But sensibly I put the book down and went to bed. I had to wait until this afternoon before I had time to pick it up again, because I didn't want to just read it in snatches, I wanted to have the time to wallow in it.

The story starts in almost too trite a manner - cute, successful, single guy meets cute woman. He's never been able to find a woman he liked enough to have a meaningful relationship with, despite his friends all marrying off and having kids, she's in a relationship but something isn't quite right with it.

The first half of the book deals with the first weekend of Travis & Gabby's relationship, and this should have alerted me to the fact that the second half of the book would be no bed of roses (for the characters involved, anyway) that and the fact that Nicholas Sparks' books can usually be relied upon to reduce me to tears at some point during them.

I won't tell you more about the plot, because if you do want to read it then I should hate to ruin it for you.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel and am sorely tempted to download another of his right this very now but that would be very self indulgent of me when I have so many other books waiting for my attention!