Honestly, I think this is the best book that Nicholas Sparks had written so far. Sometimes, the truth could be better than fiction. I had always thought of Sparks as your typical southern SNAG, who writes sappy love stories that somehow feel pretty much the same. But I still love reading his books coz they are like comfort food on a cold winter day.
Three weeks with my brother is a story that is simply told, as it is, with no frills. Sparks got a brochure in his mailbox one day, for a trip around the world, to exotic places like Machu Picchu, Easter Island, Angkor Wat, Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, etc. And so it is that his elder brother, Micah and he embarked on a sentimental journey.
Apart from describing their travels, there were a lot of flashbacks to their childhood, teenage years, and adulthood. I really couldn’t believe that things like that could happen to anyone. The Sparks were a poverished family of five. Maybe it’s true that adversity breeds familiarity coz the bonding between the three Sparks children was tight. Let me list out what the adversities were:
1. Poverty. Although they weren’t Slumdog poor, they were living in LA, in the area which Sparks thought could pass off as the “projects” (bad neighborhood, with drug dealers, prostitutes, etc)
2. The loveliest person in this story was their mother, who seemed to be pretty much an angel without a temper. After years of hardship, when all her children were grown up and doing well, and her relationship with her husband was on the mends, and when she was just thinking about retirement so that she could enjoy the horse that she finally got to own, she died. At the grand old age of 47. During a slow horse ride with her husband. What an irony… This part of the story got me in tears, I could almost feel the pain that the whole family must have been through.
3. After his mother died, Nicholas Sparks’ father fell into depression and probably had lots of anger bottled up inside him. He started to alienate all the family members except for his sister and especially Nicholas Sparks, for years. After about 7 years of sadness and anger, his father finally came around, made up with his family, and even announced that he was ready to marry his gf. It was also around this time that Nicholas Sparks completed The Notebook, his first published novel. The book was sent out to publishers and one fine day, he got an offer for his book- a one million dollars advance (I didnt know writing books could be so lucrative!)! Overnight, I guess Nicholas Sparks became a celebrity, with movie offer, TV interviews, etc. whilst he was recording a TV interview, he got a phone call from his brother, saying that his father was involved in a car accident, and had died. It’s almost like some psychopath up there is saying, “Ah Hah! You are finally happy, but too bad today is the day you meet your maker too!”
4. One beautiful thing in this story is the love he has for his wife, Cathy. You have often heard about how people just KNOW that this person is the person they want to spend forever with. Corny. but it happens. It happened for Nicholas Sparks. The second time he saw his wife, he said to her, ” You and I are gonna get married one day.” How sweet. However, things started to fray a little when their second son was suspected to be autistic. I can imagine the stress of having a child who has difficulties, whether it’s physical, psychological, or what not. but their patience and love for their children and each other, won at the end of the day.
5. His youngest sister, Dana, was diagnosed with brain tumor. Horrifying! But she fought on with the illness for years. But in the end, she died. But again, you could find something good out of this unfortunate event. She died after fulfilling her dreams of having her own family- a husband and a pair of twins (which is no mean feat, considering the fact that she conceived while she was doing her chemotherapy). I guess it was not a life wasted. And that is the most important thing.
Some lovely life learnings from Nicholas Sparks’ mother:
“It’s your life+ social commentary.
What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.
No one ever said that life was fair . ”
All in all, great book. I will put it on my to-buy list!
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