A Bend in the Road

Nicholas Sparks was one of my mother's favorite authors. I hauled her to Detroit...a city that only the brainless or those with a death wish venture onto their highways to reach...to see and meet one of her favorite authors. I'm glad I did this as she passed away 6 months later. He was a delightful man, and I really enjoyed meeting him. For some reason I loved watching the movies that had been made from his books...but the books themselves just didn't "do it" for me. When my library asked if I would lead a discussion group for their monthly book read group...of course i said yes...I should have asked "what book are they reading"? I couldn't, nor did I really want to say no since it was the groups book read. I'm glad I read it. I found show more it was a quick and easy read. It won't be at the top of my recommendation or "let's read this one again" list...but as a Nicholas Sparks book goes, I would choose this one if I HAD to recommend one. One thing I liked was his writing style. He starts the story off with a narration recalling how events of his life intertwined with those of the story's two main characters. By doing this the reader was able to feel sympathy for the narrator as he retells the story of how Miles and Sarah learn to love again after tragic events uproot both of their lives. Miles Ryan is a small-town county sheriff in North Carolina, with a 7-year-old son, Jonah. Miles and Jonah's lives were turned upside down 2 years prior when tragedy strikes, and they bury a wife and mother. Miles is left with no answers and no one to charge for the crime that was committed. After years of obsession, he finds himself looking ahead and wanting to rebuild a life. One with love, and happiness and one... with a wife. Sarah Andrews, a schoolteacher, had just moved to the town after leaving Baltimore to be closer to her parents. She's just gone through a nasty divorce and the last thing she's looking for is love considering she had been deeply and emotionally hurt by her ex-husband. When a student in her class is in need of extra help, she meets Deputy Ryan, and the sparks fly. Neither one of them expected for their feelings to come so fast and so hard, and when a secret is revealed that could rip apart the very love story they created, forgiveness and understanding may be their only hope. My library group loved it and I have to say it wasn't "half bad". Not quite 5 stars but worth 4.5 show less

Yes, I'm a book snob. I admit it. And yet, I'm not above enjoying a trendy popular book. I gladly read the entire Twilight series, for pete's sake!

But it took everything I had to force my way to the end of this book. I overlooked the dull sentence structure, the lifeless characters...even managed to get over that horrendous grammatical error that set me off in the early chapters. But Sparks is so damn heavyhanded with his forshadowing, it ruined what might otherwise have been a mildly interesting turn of events.

The saving grace was that because of all these things, it was the work of a few hours to read the whole thing. So now I have done my duty as an American bookseller and have versed myself in the immensely popular Nicholas show more Sparks. But truthfully? I didn't really care about Sarah and Miles any more than I cared about Bella and Edward. show less

Yes, I'm a book snob. I admit it. And yet, I'm not above enjoying a trendy popular book. I gladly read the entire Twilight series, for pete's sake!

But it took everything I had to force my way to the end of this book. I overlooked the dull sentence structure, the lifeless characters...even managed to get over that horrendous grammatical error that set me off in the early chapters. But Sparks is so damn heavyhanded with his forshadowing, it ruined what might otherwise have been a mildly interesting turn of events.

The saving grace was that because of all these things, it was the work of a few hours to read the whole thing. So now I have done my duty as an American bookseller and have versed myself in the immensely popular Nicholas show more Sparks. But truthfully? I didn't really care about Sarah and Miles any more than I cared about Bella and Edward. show less

I read this all day at work last night and was about 90% into it when I got home and couldn't put it down. even though I had to get up and work a 14 hour shift tonight I tried justifying staying up to read it to myself because if I didn't finish it I would just think about it all night and not sleep anyway right? well I finished it and still stayed up all night thinking about it. this is the third Nicholas sparks novel I have read and although the main focus of all three is a love story they are all completely different books, because most of his covers are all the same, a couple embracing and looking very much in love, I worried that the stories would all be the same only different characters and settings. that's not the case, the show more first one I read was a tragedy, the second was a thriller, and this one was more of a drama/crime mystery novel, I can't wait to see what the next one is. one other thing I can say about Nicholas sparks is that he knows how to write a great ending. show less

I died a little inside reading this book. Unfortunately Spark's well paced plot made it difficult to stop reading despite the distraction of my gag reflex.

A good story but once again, I had figured out who the hit and run driver was very early in the book. Sparks' books are very predictable. I liked the characters Sarah, Miles and Jonah and even Brian. It was still a good summer read.

Good, not great. I gave it three stars because the final scene was a fade to black. I wanted the hero to grovel a bit (he was a total ass) and I wanted the heroine to have a bit more backbone with him at the end. But, it was an interesting enough read that I finished it in a day, so there's that.