#25 of 52 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks
Semi-spoilery post follows.
I wanted to like this book. Actually, I liked it a little until the last page or so. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
M gave this to me for my birthday (along with Dead Until Dark and other things). I figured that it would be a light, fluffy read–possibly with a melancholy twist, like many of Nicholas Sparks’s novels, for example (many of which I’ve read in the past).
Until fairly recently, I didn’t even know that Patterson uses ghost writers (co-writers?) on virtually all his books now. BookishlyFab clued me in to his new method. I was really surprised, since it’s Patterson’s name sprawled across the cover, and his author photo covering the entire back cover. In comparison, his co-author gets a very small credit on the front. But getting back to my original point, the entire book reads like a romance novel, minus the spicy love scenes. Seriously. Either Charbonnet wrote this entire thing herself, or Patterson has acquired one heck of a female literary voice.
That being said, it was a very fast read. Almost too fast. I noticed that every chapter was strangely short. As in, three to four pages long. I began thinking that the chapters were there merely to add additional white space and pages. The story itself was not very long or well developed. Also, the typeface is rather large, especially for my edition (a trade paperback). This isn’t a large-print edition, either. As far as the characters, I found them very formulaic. Too good to be true, or so villainous, it was unintentionally comical. There wasn’t much character development to speak of.
The premise of the story had been promising: a young girl named Jane has an imaginary friend, Michael. He leaves her when she turns nine (because that’s what imaginary friends have to do), only to show up later in her life, when she’s in her 30s. They fall in love, blah blah cheesy love scene, but then there’s this “twist” which did not amuse me at all. Needless to say, the ending rather sucked. It even had the bonus of an epilogue with such a pat ending that I kind of wanted to toss the book when I was done (but didn’t, since it had been a gift and all). But yes, the ending was that bad. While it’s not exactly the same, the plot is suspiciously similar to the movie City of Angels (which is kind of cheesy in its own right, but which I still enjoy).
I will be avoiding James Patterson’s novels in the future (co-written or otherwise). I vaguely remember reading his other novel, Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas, years ago. But I remember nothing of the plot, other than it seemed like another Nicholas Sparks knockoff. I’m just kind of bored with books like these.
I’ve always found James Patterson to be overrated — although, to be fair, I’ve never read one. just learned about them when I worked at the bookstore and when he started writing lovey dovey books I really knew I didn’t want to read any! hehe
After having read two of his books, I think he’s overrated, too! Though, I haven’t any of his thrillers…
I had thought Sparks wrote Diary for Nicholas! Whoops.
I’ve realized the real big authors, Patterson-Sparks-King (his later works) I don’t like. It’s almost as though they think “I’m big time now” and don’t even bother trying to produce a decent story for those who shell out our hard earned money to enjoy. (complains the woman who wants to be an author)
I read this book and I thought the same thing you did!! I actually had to force myself to keep reading the book, and I usually never have a problem finishing a book. I will not read any more books that he co-writes.
I do enjoy his Cross novels though.