Safe Haven

Grand Central Publishing

Safe Haven
Nicholas Sparks
2010

The Summary
"When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past.  Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships:  one with her plainspoken neighbor, Jo; and another with Alex, a widowed store owner with two young children.  Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to relax her guard, putting down roots in the community and becoming increasingly attached to Alex and his family.

"But even as Katie begins to fall in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her...a past that set her on a fearful journey across the country, to the oasis of Southport.  With Jo's support, Katie eventually realizes that she must choose between a life of transient safety and one of riskier rewards...and in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven."

The Good
Oddly enough, I fell in love with Safe Haven.  I've always been reluctant to read Nicholas Sparks.  I was never interested in reading The Notebook and I wasn't thrilled with The Choice, but I loved watching A Walk to Remember and I even liked watching Safe Haven when it came on TV.  Regardless, I was still a little hesitant to begin Safe Haven, because I really didn't know if I would enjoy it--if I would even get past the first chapter.

Well, I did.  And I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

I've read Nicholas Sparks in the past, but I could never fully enjoy his writing.  Something about The Choice just wasn't appealing to me.  I'm not sure if it was his writing style, or the story, or the format--or if it just wasn't right for me at the time--but I wasn't impressed.  I pretty much brushed Nicholas Sparks aside and discounted him as a writer.

However, I found myself enjoying Safe Haven more than I expected.  It's a sweet little romance with endearing characters set in a small, Southern town on the coast, and it's threaded with very subtle hints of magic.  I might have liked it because it reminded me of Sarah Addison Allen and Linda Francis Lee, but I think I might have liked it best because it's set in North Carolina.  I've been to tiny towns like Southport, I've been to beaches like Katie describes, so the story appealed to me on a deeply personal level.

Most importantly, I think I liked the narrator:  Rebecca Lowman.  Lowman, who also narrated Girl Who Chased the Moon, does a fantastic job of bringing Sparks' works to life.  She's careful to distinguish characters with individual accents, using the soft drawl and twang of a Southern coastal town, while affecting different inflections in others.  I often felt myself drawn into the narrative as Lowman recounted Katie's story and her desperate flight from her past.

Safe Haven was a great audiobook, overall.  It struck a perfect balance of romance, suspense, and drama without leaning in one direction or the other, and it had a little bit of magic thrown into the mix that made it stand out.  It's sure to warm your heart, like it did mine.

The Bad
A few elements of Katie's romance with Alex rubbed me the wrong way, struck me as a little cliche, but it wasn't anything that left a lingering pall over the story.  It's not really even noticeable, just something that would appear every so often and then I would sink back into the story, ignoring it.  Otherwise, I don't really have any other complaints.

The Ugly
Domestic abuse is an ugly, ugly thing.

I didn't like Kevin for obvious reasons; however, I also feel like he wasn't crafted very well.  He has a strange religious/superiority complex that makes him strange, slightly absurd, but I suppose that stems from being purposefully made crazy.  He's not a great character, and he's a horrible human being.

And I really didn't like him.