I recently finished reading The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks. Yes, he’s a romance writer. No, I”m not a romance fan. I do, however, like Nicholas Sparks.
The first time I was exposed to him, it was through the movie The Last Song. I rented it, and it turned out to be corrupted. It stopped working halfway, leaving me full of suspense. Not knowing what else to do, I tried to Google it to find out what happened next, and then discovered it was a book. I abandoned my quest then. Naturally, I had to download it. I was impressed. Greatly. (Eventually, somehow, I got to watch the end of the movie, by the way.) I read The Notebook too, and although it was really cute, it didn’t set my mind on fire.
I didn’t think about Sparks again until I watched The Lucky One on a plane flight a few months ago. I discovered that was a book too, and I downloaded it. Now THAT rocked my world.
So, when I saw The Guardian in my school’s library on the featured shelf, I was like hey, why not?
After about thirty pages (out of about 430), I knew how it was going to end. I wasn’t wrong. But it had been a long time since I’d read something so predictable.
I wouldn’t say it was an amazing book. And though it ended exactly as I thought it would, even when the middle occasionally surprised me, I wouldn’t call it a complete waste of my time. Because, you see, sometimes, it’s good to read predictable books.
Let me explain. Sometimes, the purpose of reading the book isn’t only about the outcome. And no, I’m not going to do the cliche stress on how you may improve your vocabulary. My emphasis, actually, is on what you actually learn from the book. There’s a lot of stuff you can be exposed to, just by reading, well, anything. As long as it doesn’t subtract from your Intelligence Quotient or bore you to death, anyway.
I, for instance, am more inclined to collect information about humans and behaviour from books than actual, solid facts like places or stuff like that.
Not to spoil, but the main antagonist of this book happens to be a psychopath. (Fun, right?) But, I mean, you read psychopaths everywhere. Alex Cross novels and the like have those in abundance. But as I read more books with more villains, i start to realize that they usually have perfectly valid reasons for being villains. That’s why I usually love the back-story of the villain, psychopathic or not, being told. It gives you strange insight into the character’s true make-up.
Generally, we’re ‘supposed’ to like and sympathize with the heroes/protagonists, and straight-up dislike the villains/antagonists, just because, well, they’re the bad guys. But just as in every Alex Rider book I’ve ever read (which is all of them except Russian Roulette), the villains always have reasons. As some famous scientist from somewhere has probably said before, nothing happens without cause.
Even Dan Povenmire’s and Swampy Marsh’s character, Doofenshmirtz, has childhood memories that set off the ideas he comes up with in the present.
As we read more (or even watch more, if you’re watching the right kind of things), you might find yourself observing patterns and/or realizing things you’d never really paid attention to before. It’s all very interesting.
There’s so much you can take from a book besides how the plot was unravelled.
Incidentally, up until recently, my favourite Once Upon A Time character was the Evil Queen, Regina. She might have been the villain, but she was the most justified one I’d ever known. Now, though, it’s Captain Hook. Not just because Colin O’Donoghue and his accent are sexy but…well, mostly that.
But, I mean, look at him! He’s even better when he speaks in that accent.
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