See Me

Bad Boy Meets Good Girl

Nicholas Sparks’s romances like The Notebook and A Walk To Remember were bestsellers and made him one of the most popular writers around.

His latest, See Me (his eighteenth) is a paint-by-numbers story of bad boy Colin Hancock, with his anger issues and criminal background, falling in love with a straitlaced lawyer, Maria Sanchez.  The difference in their backgrounds is not just education and social status, but the kind of families they belong to.  His parents gave him up as a problem child without trying to understand the cause of his violent rages. Her working class immigrant family, supports and stands by her at all times.

They meet during a storm when Colin stops to fix Maria’s flat tire and all she sees is a scary looking guy with a battered face.  When they are properly introduced by Maria’s chatty sister Serena, Colin is trying very hard to reform—completing his education, working as a bartender, gymming intensely and making some extra money as a cage fighter. He also has the kind of friends that only appear in books— Evan and his fiancée Lily, who are fiercely protective of him.

Maria has just been dumped by her boyfriend, so she concentrates on her work at a law firm, fending off the creepy boss, having occasional lunches with a sympathetic co-worker and relaxing by paddle boarding alone.

She is beautiful as all romance novel heroines are supposed to be, but a lot of words are expended to describe Colin’s brooding good looks and chiseled body. Opposites attract and just when things start becoming too boring and predictable, the thriller part kicks in.

Maria is stalked by a vicious person, who sends nasty notes and wilted flowers, threatening to make her suffer. Maria’s Mexican clan turns up to shield her from harm, but what good is a muscular, cage fighting hero if not to turn into a knight for his damsel in distress, whose response to danger is panic attacks? Especially since he has had to work so hard to reassure the Sanchez family that he won’t slide back into his troubled past and always stand by their daughter.

The few scenes of their courtship are tender and sweetly romantic—like his learning to salsa just before a dance date—but on the whole the novel is just about passable. Maybe Sparks fans will find some merit in it, despite the workmanlike plotting and ordinary prose.

See Me

By Nicholas Sparks

Publisher:  Grand Central

Pages: 486