Skip to main content

Book: See Me (Nicholas Sparks)

It felt like the book was divided into two parts.

It has a slow and steady interlude that lulled me into thinking it was a romance sci-fi (sorta) by introducing me to the two main characters. 

I found Colin a little hard to relate to at first because of his violent tendencies and colored past and, I am sure all other readers found this to be true as well, I wondered if his violent tendencies would ever rear its ugly head again during a heated squabble. 

In the real world, the leopard doesn't change its spots, so, I had my doubts.

See Me - Nicholas Sparks
But I trusted Sparks to stay relatively on course with his previous works of The Notebook and A Walk to Remember. Authors are known to fish-tail once in a while or veer off track but even when they do, they generally don't make too big of a U-Turn.

The second half of the book was where I was taken by surprise.

Beyond the abovementioned two books from Sparks, I've not read the other books.

At first, the book took its time padding out potential futures for the couple, broke them up, saw her gain trust in the once-violent but changed man that Colin was. The book never ventured into Colin's parents and his side of the family. It made clear that Colin was pretty much on his own, hawked over by the police, sneered at by the public and considered a threat without trying too hard to. It was hard not to fall in love with the gentle giant that he had become.

It made me question myself: if a man with such a long history of violent tendencies was to go through a metamorphosis, would I be able to look at the person with the same kind of understanding, patience, and risk my life getting so close?

Sparks masterfully transformed my thinking with each chapter, slowly letting us into his thoughts (although I found his ambition to become a third-grade teacher to be a bit far-fetched).

I felt the book could have been written as two books. Like at first he intended it to be a romance only to add the fast-paced action as an afterthought. But it was more than an afterthought, though. It was a lengthy page-turning section that was encapsulating.

It kept me guessing till the end...and I was still wrong. And this proves Nicholas Sparks to be as masterful a thriller storyteller as he is a romantic one.

4.9/5 Stars


😂 0.1 stars taken off because of the cover. It was a misleading cover. I bought the book because I thought it was a romance/mellow toilet-subway-bank-train station-restaurant queue kind of book. Those dead yellow roses don't look dead enough to tell the true story of what's inside.

It's Friday!
Love,
content strategist, blogger, book lover and human of sorts

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Stargazer - Stretch Those Sides

I have been doing this pose, part of Cosmic Dance (a type of yoga, I am assuming), called Stargazer pose without knowing it is called Stargazer's pose a lot in the past. You see, sometimes, I don't follow the rules and come up with my own stretches and poses. It is fun. I have on some music, nice, soothing music or just anything I can click on. Then I go with the flow, letting my hair down. Just moving to the music...and that is when I come up with the above Stargazer's pose. This pose really stretches your sides. Keep your eyes on the outstretched hand if you are keeping it pointed to the top, as if you are waving or connecting to a higher energy from the Universe. Your arms will ache a little but hey, toned arms, here you come! :-) For those who want a bigger stretch, it is safe to slowly and gently move the lifted hand towards your back...don't overdo it, listen to your body's complaints and respect it. You don't have to prove anything to anyone, reme...

Maid Side-Kick

I was kind of a little sad when I read the news about this - there will be no live-in Indonesian maids in Malaysia anymore . There are pros and cons to having a live-in maid, as with everything else, but for us, we enjoyed more pros than cons. Back then, when my kids were little, we brought in a family of maids to help with...well, just about everything, and we were like two families merged into one. They ate what we ate, we sleep, they sleep, we shop, they shop, they joke, we laugh, we joke, they laugh...for me, the maid I hired was more like a sister and side-kick to me. For that few years, I was dependent on her to mind-read my schedule and when I need or don't need help. She picked things up quickly and we ended up having lots of moments whereby we were in sync. Today, two of them are on my Facebook and we were gleefully chatting over Facebook Messenger since they've just discovered the wonders of the Internet and Social Media. Since we were more like partners in crim...

A Liberating Activity - Guess What Mine Is....

When asked what’s my one single favorite thing to do in the world, I would usually name a whole list of things that I love to do when my work is not screaming at me. Something that takes my mind COMPLETELY off of everyday tasks and relaxes me. Take a guess what it is…. If you say ‘ reading ’, yes, I love reading (especially soppy love stories with lots of sex scenes, please. Hee hee hee ….) and I also love mystery novels but it’s not the first on the list. If you say ‘ playing the piano ’; yes, I love playing the piano. Creating forms a huge part of my life and whenever I play the piano (as inept at it as I am), there’s this tiny little girl inside of me jumping up and down with glee, clapping her hands. It’s my childhood dream to be able to play the piano! And thumping on the keys gives me a sense of satisfaction when I hear the music. If you say ‘ writing ’; You’ve got to be kidding me! You mean I don’t write enough as it is? Case closed. If you say ‘ playing with my kids ’; Yea...