Heartbreak and Healing
Nicholas Sparks is undoubtedly one of the world’s most popular writers of romantic fiction, disproving the general notion that only women write love stories.
His 1996 novel, The Notebook started his amazing rise to bestseller fame. Twenty years later, he has come up with his twentieth book, rather unimaginatively titled Two by Two. The narrator is Russell Green, who believe that his love story has a happy end—his wife Vivian is beautiful, they have a lovely daughter, named London; his career in advertising is doing well.
After such a build up the crash is inevitable. Vivian had given up her job to be a full time homemaker, putting a financial burden on Russell, who bore it cheerfully. Then, she suddenly ups and leaves to take up a lucrative job in another city. Russell is left holding the baby, so to say, as he is turned into a single father to a six-year-old.
For a man focused on his work (to make this worse he also loses his job), he has to learn all the nitty-gritty of raising his daughter and doing the work of cook, nurse, driver that the urban parent—invariably the mother—has to manage. Most of the story is about Russell becoming the perfect father to London (who is unbearably cute!). But life does throw him a second chance at happiness. Russell admits he is the kind of sweet, romantic caring man, whom women like to make friends with, whose shoulder they cry on, as they have their hearts broken by the bad guys. A man like him does not deserve to be cruelly jilted.
Sparks’s fans know his style is direct and somewhat sappy, what they look for is heart-warming moments of human connection and on that he delivers each time. This book is as much about healing heartbreak as it Is about love, because in these times love stories do not necessarily end with a walk into the sunset.
Two by Two
By Nicholas Sparks
Publisher: Grand Central/Hachette
Pages: 606
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