See Me

Honestly, the book is exactly what you think it’s going to be, and, it’s still good. It’s actually, really good, with a high readability and passes the time quickly.

I will be upfront; I’ve never seen a Nicholas Sparks movie, nor read a Nicholas Sparks book before; I’ve been doing my best to read a variety of books this year and changed genres. This was a pleasant read, quick, and moved fairly fast. I’m not much of a romance type of person, but even as someone who’s not into guys, the main protagonist Colin, was kind of dreamy. No, really, he actually was really dreamy. As a bad boy, MMA fighter, turned good, I thought that the character was a bit over played out in the initial chapters, but as it progressed, I found that he maintained likability and still kept my attention.

A piece of me wanted to dislike the whole story; knowing that it was hitting on many of the romantic elements that I had stereotyped all of Nicholas Sparks books to be, but…it was good. Really good. Even the stereotypical family friend, with a fiancé, who embraces the bad boy, who said bad boy has a soft spot for, and vows that now harm will come to them, even they were perfectly written, well developed, and offered humor to the story in very genuine and sweet ways. I laughed out loud at them…I don’t do that, but they were so cute and added a dimension to the character of Colin.

The female protagonist is well developed with some levels of depth that creates a significant amount of buy-in from the reader. I found myself rooting for her, and was happy with all of her resolutions that occurred in ways that support her character and kept rather true to who she was throughout the book. Maria has some fleeting encounters with sexual harassment, which comes up right away in the story. Sparks actually does a good job of mirroring oft-occurring responses, and does so in a really good way that stays away from self-blame, but also frames the emotional discomfort that (unfortunately) many women have felt in some work situations.

Maria’s story is one that plays into the “thriller” aspect of the story, but, the book isn’t a “thriller,” it’s more like, a plot dimension with some action? I mean, it’s not really a thriller, there is foreshadowing very early on that gives background context to Maria’s past employment as a city prosecutor and some disgruntled individuals due to her work. I’m not really giving anything away, but the reader gets a “pool” of two/three individuals who are affiliated with the same case. Since the case is so far removed and buy-in to the persons affiliated with the case is minimal, in my opinion, it was more so a matter of, “Well…it’s one of them” without really needing a distinction of who it was; as they all were a blur associated with the same issue. However, the thriller aspects lets us spend more time with Colin making himself a bit dreamier and developing as a person.

If I had only one piece of criticism; Colin is an MMA fighter, and it’s initially very central to his figure. However, I actually watch and follow a lot of MMA, and there is a disconnect between some of the training components and what Colin is doing. I had given up some hope that Nicholas Sparks really knew anything about MMA, but then he made a comment about an amateur fight sometimes getting a bit more brawl-like, which made me happy, as it’s true, but the relationships between fights and coaches and even training partners are really strong; so that aspect maybe a bit under played. Again, that’s just me, having that familiarity. I still liked it a lot.