The Wish by Nicholas Sparks (2021) Even though Hollywood ceased automatically grinding out film versions of Nicholas Sparks' weepy, doom-filled romances (low box office), it's comforting to know that hasn't stopped him from pumping out a new one every few years......
The good news for those who expect a good cry that'll require multiple tissue boxes......"The Wish" is prime, tear-wrenching, gut-punching Sparks.....designed to leave you collapsed and bawling your eyes out as you turn the last pages.
You'll find all the Sparks' tropes in play here......the terminal illness diagnosis, the sad reflection about a past littered with regrets for the roads not taken, and the blossoming of young first love against the impossibility of its survival.
Come to think of it, this book may well take its place along side the author's much beloved 'The Notebook' as novels considered to be quintessential Sparks......
Right at the start, there's Maggie Dawes, a 30 something, world travelling, world famous photographer.....now, during the upcoming Christmas holiday, she's living out her final days as a terminal cancer victim.
To Mark, a devoted young assistant at her photo and art gallery, she recounts her summer as a 16 year old burdened with an unwanted pregnancy. Her emotionally remote parents ship her off to live on a desolate North Carolina Outer Banks island with her ex-nun aunt, where she'll carry the child to birth and immediately give it up for adoption.
What Maggie never counted on was falling deeply in love with the only other teen on the island, the boy who's been hired to tutor her as part of her aunt's home schooling efforts.
And that's as much plot as anyone would need to plunge into a Nicholas Sparks novel.......except to say that Sparks delivers a surprise twist to finish his tale and some final pages guaranteed to make his readers drain their tear ducts dry......
So now you know what's ahead for you in this book should you attempt it.....
If you've always found the entire Sparks-ian universe (both books and films) to be shamelessly manipulative, maudlin and too formulaic ,then don't give it a second glance. Skip it.
But if you've loyally sobbed your way through all the author's previous books, then here's one that delivers the goods like no other. Prepare to turn on your waterworks, cause 'The Wish' will make your fervent wish for a 5 star (*****) Sparks-tacular come true.
Not that we ever cry while reading such things.......hardly ever.
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