Nicholas Sparks: Monster?
- Thread starter William Haskins
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I can't say I'm surprised. I always knew there was something off about this guy. Shame that it's not really hitting the media circuit with his new movie coming out (which looks EXACTLY the same as all of his other novels. I swear he just changes the character names).
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Isn't his school supposed to be religious in nature? Not saying that excuses homophobia, or that all Christians (or Christian schools) hold anti-LGBT social values, but it's hardly unusual either. Religious organizations are pretty much free to discriminate against whomever they want these days, so long as they don't get any federal funds, aren't they?
But I know almost zero about him, since he doesn't write the kind of stuff that attracts my interest as a reader.
But I know almost zero about him, since he doesn't write the kind of stuff that attracts my interest as a reader.
No idea who he is.
Edit: oh right, he writes all the movies that we shoot down in the Turkey Shoot.
Yeah. Ok. This will now be in the next round of jokes.
Edit: oh right, he writes all the movies that we shoot down in the Turkey Shoot.
Yeah. Ok. This will now be in the next round of jokes.
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But no school or religious organization is allowed to foster a working environment for the teachers full of hostility, intimidation and maybe even fear for their lives. And they certainly cannot spread lies about a supposed medical condition of one of the teachers.
Nor especially can any school knowingly allow persecution of select students to go unchecked.
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there was a really funny article about all the books Nicholas Sparks wrote...and how they're all the same.
Liosse de Velishaf
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That's a good thing in romance terms, though. Many romance readers like knowing what they're getting ahead of time.
No, his are TOO much alike. The basic premise of boy+girl should be there, but the rest should be unique.
His contain:
Someone gets cancer.
Someone dies.
There's a letter.
Something like that. I really can't speak from experience. I only ever read one of his books and I had to force myself to finish it. The article was hilarious though. I think one of those Cracked articles (is that what it's called?).
Liosse de Velishaf
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My understanding of the romance market suggests that a clear formula can be very attractive to romance readers. Certainly Harlequin/Silhouette's category romance lines have more stringent requirements than just person + person fall in love.
The popularity of the guys novels kinda backs up my argument pretty well.
Yes, but there has to be something unique twist on it. When the plot is pretty much the same, that's bad.
I'm willing to bet it's the success of the movies that make his books popular, not the book first. The one book I read was because I loved the movie, which I had seen first before reading the book. It's also like the Richard Castle books. I think those became popular because of the show.
There is a difference in The Notebook, in that it was based on his grandparents' story. And I think that's the movie that propelled his career.
And it wasn't that his book The Notebook was a big seller and therefore got made into a movie. It got made into a movie immediately (at least that's what it sounded like to me, because his advance for the book was $1mil.)
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Liosse de Velishaf
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The twist doesn't have to be that unique. The books are different enough, going by the movie versions I've seen.
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Except he swears up down and sideways that he is not a romance novelist (because Ewww cooties or some junk). He writes "love stories" thankyouverymuch.
I lived in the same town (New Bern, NC) as him for a while and often saw him in Target. A town that is very largely black with an aging conservative white population. He had permanent stank face. Plus with the main body of his works being about young soldiers or marines and their pretty, pious young ladies and their love story on the beach that are oh so tragic, I'm not really surprised by any of this.
ETA: Also, there was that time he donated a huge track to our high school. The high school where most of the textbooks are falling apart and horribly out of date. But, you know, a big circle of asphalt was so necessary.
I lived in the same town (New Bern, NC) as him for a while and often saw him in Target. A town that is very largely black with an aging conservative white population. He had permanent stank face. Plus with the main body of his works being about young soldiers or marines and their pretty, pious young ladies and their love story on the beach that are oh so tragic, I'm not really surprised by any of this.
ETA: Also, there was that time he donated a huge track to our high school. The high school where most of the textbooks are falling apart and horribly out of date. But, you know, a big circle of asphalt was so necessary.
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I don't think he writes romances, but not for the reasons he gives in that article.
Romance requires a happily ever after (or happy for now). If one of the leads dies at the end (and isn't that what usually happens in his books? I've never read one), then that's not an HEA.
Romance requires a happily ever after (or happy for now). If one of the leads dies at the end (and isn't that what usually happens in his books? I've never read one), then that's not an HEA.
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I think one of the main reasons I see a lot of the same, tired plot of his over and over again is that he always has a rich, white girl who falls in love with a good, ole boy from the "wrong side of the track."
Also, ALL of his books take place in some stereotype Southern town on the shores of either North or South Carolina. All of the neighbors are really kind to each other, everyone just sits out on the front porch drinking sweet tea and fanning themselves...I live in the South and it's not like that (except the sweet tea part lol).
Also, ALL of his books take place in some stereotype Southern town on the shores of either North or South Carolina. All of the neighbors are really kind to each other, everyone just sits out on the front porch drinking sweet tea and fanning themselves...I live in the South and it's not like that (except the sweet tea part lol).
He ran track at Notre Dame, so that may have been why. Actually, we were in the same class.
In point of fact, someone really ought to sue him for that barge of lard A Walk To Remember. I was peer pressured into going with a bunch of other women and I think I actually lost several thousand synapses in the process.
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I agree with you that they shouldn't, but I don't think the courts have consistently backed this position. The jury is, metaphorically speaking, still out on this issue.
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If schools really weren't allowed to be hostile and allow the spreading of false and nasty rumors most of the schools I attended or worked at would be dragged into the courts every single year.
To win a court case one generally has to show something systematic or egregious that crosses a clear line beyond just jerks being jerks.
To win a court case one generally has to show something systematic or egregious that crosses a clear line beyond just jerks being jerks.
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This was my thought also. So far, we have one man suing Sparks and alleging all sorts of horrible behavior to justify the lawsuit.
The inflammatory language ("homo-caust"? Really? Is he claiming that Sparks himself used that term?) makes me skeptical about accepting the accusations at face value, at least until Sparks has had a chance to respond.
Right now, the story is entirely one-sided.
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Also the behavior alleged is mostly a bit woolly sounding. WTF would a 'homo-caust' actually be? Who called whatever-it-was that?
As for spreading a rumor someone has Alzheimers. That could be anything from a cruel and knowingly false vendetta to a casual comment of concern to a friend along the lines of 'do you think maybe our mutual friend is unwell and we should urge him to see a doctor?'
Just because it is easy to believe someone did [X] does not mean they actually did [X]....
As for spreading a rumor someone has Alzheimers. That could be anything from a cruel and knowingly false vendetta to a casual comment of concern to a friend along the lines of 'do you think maybe our mutual friend is unwell and we should urge him to see a doctor?'
Just because it is easy to believe someone did [X] does not mean they actually did [X]....
Homo-caust? Where the hell did the plaintiff get that phrase from? Was it a direct quote from Sparks? Good lord. If it was....he's damned, and damnable.
But the book came out in 1996, and the movie was released in 2004. I remember listening to an audiobook of it that my mom checked out from the library in 1999 or so. Also, while I think The Notebook was a bigger film, the film adaptation of A Walk to Remember came out in 2002, two years earlier. I don't recall the book it was based on being a big hit (I hadn't heard of it), but the movie was big because Mandy Moore was popular at the time (and I think Shane West was popular with the teenage girl demographic). I was 14 when that came out, and it was the tragic teen love story film for a little while. I wouldn't be surprised if that helped get The Notebook made.
Actually, I just checked, and the film adaptation of Message in a Bottle, another Sparks book, came out in 1999. So Nicholas Sparks film adaptations have been coming out for a while.
Your timeline sounds right, even if my memory is fuzzy, which confused me so I looked it up on Wiki. Production on The Notebook began in March 1996, so it took years to make.
So:
The Notebook - book (1996); film (2004), but began production in 1996.
Message in a Bottle - book (1998); film (1999)
A Walk to Remember - book (1999); film (2002)
I had stumbled across his website or blog one time and he had been talking about The Notebook and how he was looking for an agent and didn't know what he was doing and just pretty much queried random agents. And then one of them took him on, but she had been a newbie (and his last hope or something), and then she told Warner Bros was interested. I could be relaying it wrong, and Lord knows my memory is terrible, but that's how I remembered it.
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