Noah Calhoun is a wonderfully romantic poet who is now in his 90s and living in a creekside nursing home in New Bern, North Carolina. At 90 years old, Noah is still full of the wit and wisdom that comes from having lived a full life with the only woman he had ever loved, and the four children they raised together. Noah has survived being shot at in the war, the loss of his beloved wife via Alzheimers, and even two strokes of his own. Still at 90, Noah puts one foot in front of the other and shuffles on.  
 
Too bad, author Nicholas Sparks novel "The Wedding" isn't a story about Noah Calhoun at all.  
 
Nicholas Sparks is a popular romance author whose novels are frequently made into movies, which explains why they are constantly on the bestseller lists. The Nicholas Sparks movies aren't bad, as screenwriters are able to adapt (fix) flaws in the plot to make the novels palatable for the screen.  
 
I just wish somebody could fix the flaws in the novels before they are even published, sparing the readers many pages of agony.  
 
I've read everything he's done, and his latest, "The Wedding" is definitely his worst.  
 
"THE NOTEBOOK": "The Wedding" is a sequal to "The Notebook," and "Notebook" was the first novel ever written by author Nicholas Sparks. I kind of slammed "Notebook" on Amazon, but now after having to endure "The Wedding," "Notebook" is looking pretty good. "Notebook" tells the story of Noah and Allie, the romantic star-crossed lovers; spanning the decades of their romance through their love letters and choppy romance scenes, right up to the bittersweet end of their legendary romance, when they are both in a nursing home.  
 
What was innovative about the overly choppy and clipped "Notebook" was the story of senior citizens in their 80s still holding onto their love and romance even with assorted medical problems, at the end of their lives.  
 
"NOTEBOOK" VS "WEDDING": None of that innovation is evident in "The Wedding" as there are no new letters to be revealed, Noah is only ten years older (90) than he was in the "Notebook," and the "Wedding" simply fills in (the operative word being "filler") the period of time when Noah and Allie were raising their four children. The "Wedding" doesn't even manage this very well, as Noah and Allie's child-rearing is glossed over in favor of focusing on the lives of 90-year-old Noah's married daughter.  
 
"WILSON AND JANE LEWIS": The first-person narrator of "The Wedding" is the son-in-law (Wilson) of Noah's daughter Jane. ?????? Talk about indirect. This story is about Noah. The "Notebook" was about Noah. Noah is the one with a love of poetry and nature who loved only one woman (Allie) throughout all his life. Noah is 90-years old. The reader might like to hear directly from a 90-year-old what life is like at that stage. What a wonderful opportunity to tell a senior citizen's story. Who gets to hear the private thoughts of a 90-year-old? But no no no. The reader is left with the quite-boring blather of Noah's 50-something son-in-law, "Wilson."  
 
Then again, there's really nothing to tell, and no particular urgency in the plot. Noah is 90-years-old and still living in the nursing home. Noah's son-in-law (Wilson and Jane) aren't as romantic as they would like, and Wilson plans a big ceremony to renew their vows.  
 
And, that's it.  
 
That's the whole plot of this novel: Assorted scenes of the wedding vow-renewal ceremony being planned; repetitive scenes of events that took place in "Notebook"; 90-year-old Noah talking to swans out by the creek of the Creekside Extended Living Center (nursing home)----blah blah blah---All told through the eyes of "Wilson" the son-in-law, not Noah. Again, our Author doesn't give the 90-year-old Noah a voice, as was the case in "Notebook." And the reader is left to listen to the dull ruminations of son-in-law Wilson Lewis.  
 
MISSED OPPORTUNITY: Before Wilson married Jane, Wilson was an atheist. Of course Jane, whose parents were the deeply spiritual and romantic Noah and Allie, is highly religious. Nicholas Sparks writes that shortly after Wilson married Jane, Wilson accepted Jesus Christ. Yes, author Nicholas Sparks writes this. Ok, I the reader am thinking, now this could get interesting.  
 
But, no no no. Right when the reader's interest is piqued, author Nicholas Spark's cuts it off by having first-person narrator (Wilson) refusing to say anything more about his conversion other than immediately after marrying Jane, he converted to Christianity. End of story, according to author Nicholas Sparks.  
 
An author who brings up the topics of atheism and Jesus Christ should not be relegating them to one sentence. You don't open up that can of worms without delving into it further. Exactly how did Wilson's conversion take place? What influenced Wilson to become and atheist in the first place? Would Wilson have converted had he not married Jane? Don't count on Nicholas Sparks, or narrator Wilson Lewis to answer these questions.  
 
FIRST PERSON NARRATION: Thing is, most first-person narrators in all of literature are hardly shy in the end. And one of the tenets of Christianity is to tell a friend and not keep it to one's self. But that's only part of what makes "Wilson" a horrible narrator.  
 
Doing a first-person narration is tricky, and readers expect lots of insight and revelations if an author is going to do it well.  
 
In classic literature, the first-person narrator in Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" comes off as delightfully clever and evil while revealing himself little by little.  
 
One of the greatest first-person narrations of any modern novel is in 2003's "All He Ever Wanted" by author Anita Shreve. Author, Anita Shreve makes her first-person narrator extremely insightful and artfully revealing through varied vernacular and wordplay.  
 
THE ROMANCE GENRE: This is why romance author Anita Shreve writes rings around author Nicholas Sparks. Romance authors like Anita Shreve ("All He Ever Wanted") and Barbara Delinsky ("Flirting with Pete") are at the top of their game because they have somehow transcended the genre and would probably scoff at even being labeled "romance" to begin with. Delinsky's romances have "bite" with snappy dialogue and feisty-offbeat characters. Anita Shreve's novels have such flowing language and bizarre plots/characters, that they come off as literary classics much of the time.  
 
And, this is what I, as an avid romance reader, expect from my romances: an author so creative that he/she advances, and goes beyond the genre, such that I don't even realize that it is, in fact, romance I am reading.  
 
---Or at least a good Harlequin or Danielle Steel, which, I'm sorry to say, would both be far better than "The Wedding."  
