Hayleigh

Safe Haven Book Review

                  Nicholas Sparks’ Safe Haven is a suspenseful romance involving a courageous woman named Katie who finally decides to take control of her life. An unhealthy marriage that could ultimately lead Katie to her death leads her to become a runaway in a town near Southport, North Carolina. New to small town life, Katie is not prepared for the attention that she would draw being the new girl in town. However, she especially draws the attention of the widowed grocery store owner, Alex and his two kids, as well as her new neighbor Jo.

                   As she becomes acquainted to small town life, Katie begins to build relationships with her new friends. The relationship that develops the most, however,is that of her and Alex. Her walls that she has been holding up begin to come down, and the reader begins to see the vulnerability and fear that she has been keeping locked up all this time. This is probably a result of Alex’s kids making her feel so relaxed. Alex’s walls also come down, as he is unsure how to decipher his feelings for Katie when he knows his wife is looking down on him from Heaven. As Katie falls harder and harder into love, the secrets of her past haunt her and she knows that they have to come out sooner or later. Meanwhile Katie becomes a part of the family, going on family trips and beginning to appear like a mother figure to the kids. The events that transpire begin to test the relationship of Alex and Katie, as they try to prove their undying love to eachother while dealing with the fact that not all the truth has been told. As the lives of all four members of this makeshift family are put on the line, the loyalty and love of all four members is put to the test.

                  Sparks maintains a simple theme throughout the work: trust. It is a simple idea that is constantly put to the test as relationships are constantly being built and torn apart. Sparks also uses flashbacks throughout the work in order to tie her past to the present, showing the reader that it is not fully gone. The flashbacks give the reader a sense that these ideas still haunt her, and become a precursor for events related to her past that will transpire. Sparks also does a good job of making the reader feel like they are a part of the story. He achieves this through syntax and diction throughout the novel. He does this with the goal of the reader obtaining an emotional attachment to the story and its characters. He achieves this perfectly, as it becomes hard to put the book down because of great emotional attchment. The reader begins to feel the emotions that the characters are feeling, almost like these tragic events are happening to them. The suspense that Sparks creates makes Safe Haven a perfect book regarding reader interest. The reader gets the opportunity to feel a rollercoaster of emotions as if the characters themselves were popping out of the book.