The Best of Me

So, as I recently confessed, I have a somewhat embarrassing love of Nicholas Sparks books. Contrary to what you may assume, this did not start with The Notebook. The first Nicholas Sparks book I read was actually A Bend In The Road, and it was something my mom had gotten from a garage sale. But I'm not going to lie, I did read The Notebook shortly after.
But anyway, Nicholas Sparks is kind of my guilty pleasure. I've probably read at least ten of his books, although that's probably creeping closer to fifteen. And I have an eerie ability to read the book, and within months it's announced as becoming a movie. Seriously. The Lucky One? Dear John? The Vow? Read them all.
I had a somewhat slow start to this one. Once you read enough of his books, you start to see all the similarities. They're always set in a small town in North Carolina. A man and a woman always fall in love before facing some unforeseen complication. It sometimes starts to feel a little predictable (but God knows I keep reading them anyway). When I started The Best of Me, it felt a lot like The Notebook. Two teenagers fall in love in spite of their differences, and although they fight all the time, they share a once in a lifetime love and yada yada yada. I had my doubts about it for a while, trying to predict what would happen as I went along, but at some point it became nothing like The Notebook. Nothing like any Nicholas Sparks book I've read, and that's saying something.
The Best of Me may very well have just become my favorite. I cried. Twice. Before the epilogue, I took a deep breath and paused. I did that again at the end. It became so much more than a typical mushy love story, which is why I think that I keep reading these books. Like I said, they all seem to start the same, but they always end with this gut wrenching turn of events. At some point, they are no longer predictable at all.
So, yes. I love my Nicholas Sparks books. I'll say it loud and I'll say it proud, and The Best of Me is definitely worth picking up. And if you don't, there's a good chance it'll end up in theaters in a year or so anyway (my money says Valentines Day. Some things are still predictable).