Set me Straight, Sparks. Set Me Straight.

It’s been awhile since I dabbled in some uninformed smack talk and I do believe today I am in a smack talking mood. As you may recall, this is a chance for me to criticize an author or book which I have NOT read, in an unnecessarily obnoxious fashion.

And today’s winner is… Nicholas Sparks!!!!!

If I was going to write Nicholas Sparks a letter, it would go a little something like this:

Dear Nicholas Sparks,

Why do you hate women? Why do you want us all to be depressed? Did you sign a pact with Jodi Picoult to write the most depressing stories known to mankind? Perhaps when you were a kid, someone threw a shoe at your head while watching the Love Boat, and henceforth you are unable to differentiate between romance and horrible life crises? Help me understand, Mr. Sparks. How do you write a book that is simultaneously sappier than a Canadian maple tree, cheesier than the Green Bay Packers and more depressing than those dog commercials featuring Sarah McLachlan?

Sincerely,
Steinho

You may think I’m being overly dramatic myself, but allow me to present a few bits of evidence. I took a sampling from Sparks’ books and it was a rare occurrence where everyone made it out alive. In “Message in a Bottle,” the hero starts out with a dead wife. In “A Walk to Remember,” a young religious girl falls in love, and then promptly dies of leukemia post-wedding. Because every woman wants to believe that her teenage husband would spend the rest of his life mourning her when she kicked it at seventeen. No deaths in “Dear John,” but a woman does leave her true love after 9/11 causes him to re-enlist in the military. The main character in “Nights in Rodanthe” endures a sick father and a depressed daughter before she finally is able to fall in love again. And then what happens? Her lover dies in Ecuador! Sorry sweetheart. You don’t get to be happy. This is a Nicholas Sparks story. You’re lucky to have all your limbs and organs! Which brings me to my final victim, the novel I consider to be the epitome of Sparks’ villainy. “The Notebook.”

Ahh, “The Notebook.” If I can get one comment from an angry Rachel McAdams fan today, then I know I’ll have done my job. I get what he’s trying to do here. The whole, wedding “In sickness and in health” vow. I would LOVE to believe there is a beautiful man out there who is spending his whole life preparing to help me through any life traumas and then woo me with his care giving skills and strong shoulders to cry on. But I’m afraid Sparks’ dictionary was missing the “O” section. Clearly, he doesn’t get the concept of overkill.

For those not familiar with “The Notebook,” it’s about an elderly husband (dying of cancer) who reads his wife (who has Alzheimer’s) a story of how they fell in love, with the hopes of jogging her memory. I think I hate this story line for the same reason I hate the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” Love doesn’t cure schizophrenia, and it doesn’t cure Alzheimer’s either. Alzheimer’s means you don’t have enough neurons, not that you didn’t ever get a chance to make out in the rain with Ryan Gosling. It’s a horrible disease, and frankly, the use of it in this schmaltzy love story makes me want to vomit.

Maybe it’s the combination of one dimensional and saccharine characters coupled with depressing plot lines that offends me. I really don’t mind romances, even overly dramatic ones, if they’re done well. I love the book “Wuthering Heights,” and everybody ends up screwed in that story. The difference I suppose, is that Heathcliff and Catherine are dark and complicated characters, driven by passion into making devastating life choices. Or maybe, I just like “Wuthering Heights” more because it’s a classic, and Nicholas Sparks books can be bought in a grocery store.