Nicholas Sparks - Safe Haven

I have read many Nicholas Sparks novels and he has captured my heart every time as well as broken it into millions of pieces and I've watched many of the adaptations of his novels so at least I know what to expect from him.  In 2013, Safe Haven was adapted into a film and though I haven't seen it yet, I decided to buy the novel because it was cheap at the time so now you get to benefit from my need to fill my bookshelves.

Safe Haven is written in the typical Sparks way, following both the female, Katie, and male lead, Alex, primarily as a third person narrator with an occasional contribution from another voice, the one perceived as the antagonist, in this case, Katie's ex.  Katie is a mystery to Southport after running away from her past while Alex moved here with his late wife years before following his successful career in the army to run his father-in-law's shop.  Both are reluctant to begin a romantic relationship with anyone: Alex because of his two young kids and his fear of forgetting his late wife or erasing her memory for his children and Katie because of her past and fear of being discovered.

Rating: 10

Recommended To: Romance lovers; Nicholas Sparks fans

Favourite Characters: Alex - protective, kind, loving

Favourite Part: At his touch, she flinched slightly before relaxing.  He heard her sigh, tired now.  Tired of talking.  Tired of the past.
"You did the right thing by leaving," he said.  His tone was soft.  Understanding. - Page 160

Good Points: Excellent plot; the kids; Sparks in true form

Bad Points: Katie's ex freaked me out

Safe Haven is set in Southport, a small town in South Carolina where everyone knows everybody else due to its size; Katie is new in town and lives on the outskirts so to keep herself detached from the rest of the town so they can't get to know her.  Reluctantly, she begins to form a friendship with her neighbour, Jo, who only moved in because she knew another woman was living out in the middle of nowhere so she felt safer much to Katie's reluctance; as well as a friendship with Jo, Katie inadvertently becomes friends with Alex, who runs the local shop where she buys her groceries and begins to bond with Alex's youngest child, Kristen, who was only a baby when her mother died.

I adored this novel and the plot because even though it's a simple one - a young woman, running away from her abusive husband and hiding her true identity - I thought Sparks executed it well with his usual technique of switching between the two protagonists and the character perceived as the antagonist so there was more than one voice in the novel and therefore another point of view on certain events; an example of this could be how Katie's ex saw what he did and how Katie saw them, the voice of the abuser and the abused.  It also wasn't just a simple matter of Alex swooping in and whisking Katie off her feet to keep her away from her ex, Kevin, saving her without any groundwork; he actually got to know her properly while she got to know him to and opened up to him before they got too serious.

The kids were amazing in this book and Sparks wrote them really well; I've never been exactly what these kids have been through, with a parent dying and the other one moving on, but I have been through them divorcing and both parents moving on.  I understood why Josh, Alex's eldest, was more distant towards Katie like I was towards both of my parents' new partners as they began to move on because I was reluctant to let them into my world as I was scared of being hurt and either of my parents being hurt, much like how Josh who probably has a vague recollection of his mother before she was dying so he is scared of being hurt but he also sees how his mum's death has affected his dad so he may be worried about seeing his dad hurt if he accepts Katie into his life.

I went through the emotional wringer with this book which told me that Sparks was in true form because all of his fiction books seem to strike a nerve with me, causing me to laugh and cry from one moment to the next.  I fall in love with most of the characters then I am heartbroken and terrified when something awful happens to them, which inevitably does in a Sparks novel.  This is one of the things I love about this book because I fell for Alex just like Katie because he was everything her ex wasn't - kind, caring, loving, calm - and I understood why Alex fell for Katie in turn because she's beautiful and caring as well as extremely lovely and has great maternal instincts even though he's not trying to replace his late wife but knows that the person he ends up bringing into his life permanently will be involved in his children's lives too.  I was also absolutely terrified along with Katie and the children when there is a threat on their lives towards the end of the novel because of the way Sparks described the intense situation they were in so I was anxious as I was reading this particular part and prayed for them to be okay.

Alex is by far my favourite character and I fell in love with him, like Katie, because he's protective, kind, and loving towards a young woman he doesn't know a lot but clearly wants to know her more about her as she becomes more and more involved in his life and his children's as he can tell that she will more likely open up to him if he is kind towards her and doesn't force her to reveal anything she doesn't want to.  As well as being kind and caring towards Katie, it was great to see a character, particularly a male character, being so caring towards their children and makes him stand out against some of Sparks' other male protagonists who seem to be single or younger than Alex and without children (or the ones from the books I've read anyway).  My favourite moment with Alex between him and his children is when he dives in after his son, Josh, who has been pulled into the water by a boat accidentally when his fishing pole is caught up on it; I thought this moment was amazing because I could really see how much Alex loves his children in this moment of stress as he fears for his son's life.  It wasn't that I didn't like Katie; I just connected with Alex better because his parts had more emotion in them than the other parts as Katie was trying to hide her true self from everyone, including the reader it seems, and Alex's parts are more up front on his feelings for Katie and his children, worrying about them (and him) forgetting his late wife and their mother.

I know the whole point behind Katie's (ex-)husband, Kevin was supposed to be intimidating and scary because he abused his wife, I just felt uncomfortable and kind of freaked out by Kevin whenever I was reading any of his chapters because I don't understand the need to hurt someone you supposedly love because of something small they've done.  Domestic abuse is hard to read about for me because I don't understand either point of view and probably never will unless something happens to me later in life and either I become the one abusing or abused.  I think this book could have worked without telling Kevin's point of view because it's almost like Sparks wants someone to feel some sympathy towards him and while it's good to see the other side of the story, domestic abuse is not one of the stories I want to see both sides of.

At his touch, she flinched slightly before relaxing.  He heard her sigh, tired now.  Tired of talking.  Tired of the past.
"You did the right thing by leaving," he said.  His tone was soft.  Understanding. - Page 160

In this small part of a full length novel, I feel that this sums up the main characters Katie and Alex extremely well as she's an emotional vulnerable woman who has been hurt in the past but is slowly coming to accept that not everyone will hurt her and Alex is a caring man who can't bear to see the woman he loves be hurt, physically and emotionally.  This is probably why Alex is my favourite character as his kind nature is shown in that one simple statement which is phenomenal and a great skill that Sparks seems to have.

I adored this book because I loved the plot, the main characters, and even loved the kids because I love Nicholas Sparks' writing style and his novels; I wasn't expecting to love this book so much but I did because the story was different to other books I have read, including Sparks' others.  Part of me now wants to buy some more Sparks' books to see what they're like because I have a few just not all of them but I may hold off for a bit until I can get my to-read pile down, if that will ever happen.

Other Books by Nicholas Sparks