Before every girl who reads this article starts a riot against me, let me explain. I am a hopeless romantic who loves a movie night with candy and junk food, watching a romantic chick flick just as much as the next girl. But I'm not going to sit here and falsely say that “The Notebook" and any other Nicholas Sparks story is my favorite movie/book. Why? Because they are complete unrealistic expectations of love.
First off, many of Nicholas Sparks novels are much too common. The introduction of his novels tell a story that takes place in North Carolina, and majority of the time, it's the male's perspective that he gives. Come on Nicholas, let's vary it a little here.
The Notebook is the world's first introduction to the greatest love story of this generation. The story line is original, creative, and something that blew the audience's mind. But Nicholas Sparks is trying to tell people that guys are romantic enough, and caring enough to spend everyday of the rest of their lives dedicated to reminding their significant others of what was once their love story? Call me cold-hearted, but somehow that doesn't make much sense to me. No man has enough patience to spend every waking moment of their day to read a novel of a love story. I'm sorry. No, man.
And then we have a young girl who stupidly drops her bag into the ocean in “Dear John." All of a sudden without any hesitation, a young, attractive man dives into the ocean to retrieve the bag that the idiot of a girl dropped? Fine, maybe that's a little realistic. But then she keeps in contact with him for two years via letters….Does anyone write hand written letters anymore? Let alone e-mail to keep in contact? Realistically, she might send him one or two care packages and maybe a couple Skype sessions. There's no way the two of them are in love enough to write letters to each other every day. Need I remind you in the end of the movie they aren't even actually together?
Let's not forget about the battered house-wife Julianne Hough portrayed in “Safe Haven." This Nicholas Sparks story was one of the more different stories that Sparks told. It was finally the one story that told audience's that not every love story is a picture-perfect, sappy, makes you hate your life, cheesy one. But even though this story was a little different, was it really all that believable? Suddenly a woman moves into a one horse town, with no car, nothing under her name, and no story to tell. The town she moves into is somewhere where everyone knows everything about everyone and somehow no one questions this young girl and what her motives are? Very interesting.
But with that being said, maybe there is some good that Nicholas Sparks has brought into pop culture. We have all these nice tag lines to quote, “If you're a bird I'm a bird," and so one and so forth. Many of the movies come out close to Valentine's Day and give us great date night ideas. And for the hopeless romantic in many girls such as myself, it gives us a little bit of an escape. When we read these books and watch these movies, it gives us a little sense of what a picture perfect life can look like. It gives us expectations of how a man should really treat us and admire us, and it gives us hope that love is the greatest gift we can give and receive.
Nicholas Sparks is a household name that comes with romance stories. And although his stories are unrealistic for the most part, don't feel too bad about yourself the next time you decide to pick up his latest book, or spend $10 at the next movie. Don't expect prince charming to be waiting for you at home, but do hold your significant other to the expectations of being treated like a girl in these films.
