Dear John - a waste of time!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: A book review!
I've been feeling a little guilty for not posting a book review for so many weeks, and so while I'm fully immersed in rereading The Summer Garden, I decided to devote a couple of hours to write a book review about what book other than: Dear John by Nicholas Sparks.

I started reading the first page, I read the few lines in it, and to say I moved to the next page extremely reluctantly, would be an understatement. Something of a male first person book just didn't do it to me. Fortunately, things did get better a few pages later.

John is a soldier in furlough when he meets the beautiful too idyllic Savannah. Within two weeks they fall in love and promise to write letters to each other while John is sent back to Germany.
At the beginning it was still bearable. They had a sweet love, heartwarming moments, it was really all right. And although I wasn't on the floor weeping while reading their love letters, It didn't occur to me to stop reading.
But not John nor Savannah had anticipated 9/11 and it's consequences. Their worlds are turned upside down when John reenlists to the army, extending his service because of his patriotic side. I thought that was very noble and gallant. Apparently Savannah didn't quite agree with me.
That's when things became more strange, more abrupt and I was reading with a doubting raised eyebrow.

There are few masochists out there that do enjoy an extremely tragic ending, I am a masochist myself. I personally live to cry and cry and cry over a tragic book. Somehow, these are the books that penetrate my heart and become part of me. I love tragic endings! Here, I said it.
But I am picky, and I do have some criteria.
A heart breaks when you're reading about something that is so personal and emotional. When you pray for the characters and ask God to give them the happy ending they deserve, although you know in your heart they can't have this ending. Because their problems are just too complicated to be miraculously solved.
And that's when you cry over a tragic ending.
Honestly, I got the impression while reading the ending of Dear John, that Nicholas Sparks, with all due respect I have for him, was laughing viciously while he wrote this unbelievably pointless ending.
Yes. The ending was simply pointless and cruel! How could he write something like that?
Love reaches and ending and people move on?! Are you serious? What the hell am I suppose to do with this message? I want to read about people who fight for their love! People who don't surrender to the cruelty of fate, the heartlessness of life! People larger than life. People you identify with and want to live their story!
*Breath*

Few things that could have made the book a little more delicious:

• 
  
  Passion. Is it a love story or what? Isn't John a soldier?! I was expecting a little more love, honestly. Yes they said they love each other, blah, blah, blah. I didn't get their passion and love. Sorry. NEXT!


• 
  
  Savannah's point of view. I seriously need to know what's wrong with her that made her do what she did. I ended up hating her very very much.


• 
  
  Not such a heartless twist. Yeah, Nicholas Sparks is FAMOUS with his heart wrenching twists. But it really came across as if he wanted a tragic story so desperately he pulled a very random ending.

I'm aware that I'm too judgmental, especially because this book dealt with a love story of a girl and a soldier. God knows I'm very picky when it comes to a love story of that kind (TBH. ehem)

The only thing I was left with after I closed the book for the final time is that I should have brought The Reader instead.
I rest my case.
Have a blossoming day, a good read and a beautiful time,
Khulood.

Alexander Belov/Barrington: 91 winters and summers

“Soldier! Let me cradle your head and caress your face, let me kiss your dear sweet lips and cry across the seas and whisper through the icy Russian grass how I feel for you… Luga, Ladoga, Leningrad, Lazarevo… Alexander, once you carried me and now I carry you, into my eternity, now I carry you.
Through Finland, through Sweden, to America, hand outstretched, I stand and limp forward, the galloping steed black and riderless in my wake. Your heart, your rifle, they will comfort me, they’ll be my cradle and my grave.”

***

“Tatiasha-remember Orbeli.”

***

“”Do you hear the stellar winds, carrying from the heavens a whisper, straight from antiquity… into eternity…”
“What are they whispering?”
“Tatiana… Tatiana… Ta… tiana…”
“Please stop.”
“Will you remember that? Anywhere you are, if you can look up and find Persus in the sky, find that smile, and hear the galactic wind whisper your name, you’ll know it’s me, calling for you… calling you back to Lazarevo.”
Tatiana wiped her face on Alexander’s arm and said, “You won’t have to call me back, soldier. I’m not ever leaving here.””

***

Alexander,
The brave soldier, the tender lover, the father, the friend, the best among men.
The king and the Hero.
You’re father and mother’s only child.
Tania’s husband.
Anthony, Pasha, Harry and Jane’s only father.

We loved you through America, back in Barrington with Teddy and Belinda.
We loved you through Russia, through Red Army and Winter War. Through Yuri Stepanov whom you gave up your America for.
We loved you through your wandering days.

And we loved you on June 22, 1941. When you made your way to Ulitsa Saltykov-Schedrin, all tired after only one hour of sleep. And on that day, you heard her delicate sweet voice carried by the wind; carried only for you. “We’ll Meet Again In Lvov, My Love And I.” She sang and you became paralyzed by her. And on that day you crossed the street for Tatiana Metanova, and we loved you for that.

“Love is to be loved, in return.” You said, as she couldn’t take her eyes off Peterhof, as Dasha and Dimitri were there. You said so once, when everything was still ahead of you. When war, famine, passion, love, Lazarevo, separation, Orbeli, they all were ahead of you.

We loved you through World War II, through the blockade and starvation, through raveling passion and impossible choices, through Dasha and Dimitri and your Tania.
We loved you even more through Lazarevo, through the magical days on the banks of the mighty Kama and on the foot of the magnificent Urals. The Kama and the Urals saw it all, smelled it all, and so did we.

We loved you for scarifying your own life just to give her hope, and loved you for leaving her with the one right word: Orbeli.
We loved you through Slonko and the NKVD, through interrogations and through the too small cell.
We loved you through separation. Through penal battalion and Ouspensky. Through Pasha and his death, through Russia, Poland, Germany and finally, America.

And we continued to love you through your America life, with your beloved wife and your sweet boy.

And every year we will remember our most loved hero, our brave brash knight, who once, many years ago crossed the street for a young girl on a bench, in a white dress adorned with the most beautiful blood-red roses and smiling green leaves, and made us believe in eternal love and destiny.


Happy May 29th.
Khulood.

Well, I guess it's an addiction after all.

Hello there! It has been few weeks since my last post. I've missed you!

So I know, in my "currently reading" it says that I'm so fully immersed in Wuthering Heights, living the lives of Cathy and Heathcliff, struggling with their difficulties and biting my lower lip over their unbelievable passion...
But yeah. It's not so precise after all.
My addiction has managed to pull me out of the book and make me tiptoe to my bookshelf in the middle of the night, to make sure no one was looking and to take hold of my Bronze Horseman copy and turn the first page. For what harm could it make?! I will only read two-three pages of the book, just a glimpse, so naively I thought a week and half ago to myself.
For an instant in eternity I forgot about my sick obsession over the books of Paullina Simons. And an instant was what it took for me to be locked once again in the pages of my favorite book. It is so wonderful, that I have managed to find a book that will keep me interested, even throughout my fourth reread. It's so wonderful and yet dangerous! The comfort I find in this book will always make me unable to find myself in the pages of another.
Sometimes, women are obsessively drawn to a dangerous man, and despite knowing they should move on, they keep coming back to him. The Bronze Horseman is this man for me!
Yeah, The Bronze Horseman isn't dangerous, but... I hope you got my point.

Maybe I don't get the whole point of a "books blog", shouldn't I be doing posts about various books? Not just one book? Shouldn't I be always on the search for new books, new authors?
But here I am, STUCK in this bubble that is The Bronze Horseman trilogy and Paullina Simons.
Oh yeah, in case you are interested, I've finished the first book in the trilogy and have moved to the second one. Tatiana And Alexander. I seriously could eat this book whole. What is in this book that is so engrossing? I keep asking myself, although I know the answer for that question. I know it for a fact. It is the Alexander before Tatiana, I have never in my life been so interested in a character like I am in Alexander.
And this forever young Alexander is turning 91 this weekend. on May 29th.


I guess that's it for now,
Have a great day, keep on reading.
Khulood