The Choice

Hello blogosphere! Well today I am going to review my first Nicholas Sparks novel, The Choice. I wanted to read some Nicholas Spark's novels because he is a North Carolina writer and he is a New York Times Bestselling author. So I was pretty excited to read the book and I had pretty high expectations. But without further ado, here is my review of The Choice.

Characters: Travis Parker: veterinarian/extreme sports enthusiast/the only one of his friends to not be married
Gabby Holland: PA at a pediatricians office/dating long-time boyfriend Kevin/has a pregnant dog
Stephanie Parker: Travis's sister/Travis's best friend/is studying biochemistry at UNC Chapel Hill
Joe, Laird, and Matt: Travis's best friends since kindergarten/worried about Travis never getting married/all married with kids

The Plot: Travis Parker's life is falling apart. With no hope, he looks to the past for answers, and for comfort in a time when he was happy. Go back eleven years and you would find Travis Parker, the happily single veterinarian. A lover of extreme sports and good times, he used to feel that a girlfriend would only complicate his life. Enter Gabby Holland, a PA at a pediatricians office with a boyfriend with series commitment issues. Together they discover that what they thought love was, wasn't love at all. But when Gabby gets into a car accident and falls into a coma for three months, Travis has to make a choice. Keep Gabby alive, or respect her wishes that he take out her feeding tube if she was still in a coma after three months? Terrified with no one to turn to, Travis must search his soul and ask himself the question that is the theme of this book "how far will you go to keep the hope of love alive?"

What I liked: Well there was a lot of good in this novel. Because I have started reading another Nicholas Sparks novel since finishing The Choice, I have come to see that the sort of flashbacks to the past while dealing with a problem in the present are sort of a trademark for him. To be honest, I really enjoy how he writes his novels in this way. I think that too often romance stories are just the time it takes for the couple to get married and then it is the end. But with Nicholas Spark's novels, you see the couple's whole life and how their whole story played out, not just the beginning. He doesn't write a naive romance novel where love is shown as always perfect and happy, the couples in these books get into arguments just like the rest of us. And they aren't artificial, fake arguments used to cause tension and a climax. Like in The Choice, Travis must decide to honor the vow and living will his wife made, or he must keep her alive at the detriment to his family (Travis and Gabby met another family where the mother went into a coma and the whole family fell apart because the wife became a burden on the family that prevented them from moving forward. This prompted Gabby to make the living will). I also liked *Major Spoilers Ahead* Travis's decision. If I had a family member in a coma, I would also keep them here as long as possible in the hope that one day I could have them with me again. I can't go against people who make the other decision because I also understand why but I know I couldn't let my hopes of being with them die. Lastly, I loved when Stephenie and Travis were talking and Travis asked Stephenie why she said no again when her boyfriend asked her to marry him for the third time and she said because she was waiting to make sure that he loved her as much as Travis and Gabby loved each other because she didn't want anything less. I thought that was beautiful and that it expressed so simply how people look for love. I know I want someone who loves me as much as my parents love each other so I can honestly relate to that.

What I didn't like: There honestly wasn't anything I can think of off the top off my head. Thinking through the novel, I honestly enjoyed every part of it.

Overall: 9.5 out of 10. I truly beautiful novel.