Rating: 
Summary: Do read it!
Review: ."This is above all, a love story, and like so many love stories, the love story of Miles Ryan and Sarah Andrews is rooted in tragedy. At the same time , it is also a story of forgiveness,..."
"A bend in the road" is another beautiful love story from Nicholas Sparks.As the above excerpt says it is indeed a story of forgiveness and this is what makes it even more beautiful.
Miles Ryan is a widower who has not fully recovered from the death of his loving wife Missy Ryan.Missy Ryan did not die of any illness.She died in a accident.
Miles believes it to be a hit-and-run kind and he has been searching for the driver since her death. He wants to punish the driver.
Sarah Andrews is a divorcee. Her husband ditched her after finding that she cannot become pregnant. This hurt her very much and she moves to New Bern on the advice of her loving parents. She is a teacher by profession. Jonah Ryans (Miles's 7 year old son) is in her class. She finds him to be incompetent and offers to help him after school hours. Soon, Miles and Sarah meet each other often and they fall in love.
Just when everything seems to be perfect, Miles learns the shocking secret of who drove the car the night Missy died. The secret disturbs the perfect relationship between Miles and Sarah. However, it does have a happy ending.
The beauty of the story lies in the narration. Finally, it is the driver with whom one will commiserate more. The narration shows that we indeed have no control over certain things in life.
This is one of the best from Sparks. In most of his books the story is not quite effective but the narration makes it a bestseller. But this story seems to have more stuff than his other stories.
This is a lovely book. Do read it.
Rating:
Summary: A Bend in the Road
Review: A Bend in the Road is a great book for young adults. It is about a man named Miles Ryan and his son Jonah going through life after their wife and mother Missy dies. Miles tells himself he will never forgive himself if he does not find who "murdered" his wife at the hit and run scene. Missy had been his first love. He thought she would also be his last until the day he meets Sarah Andrews, Jonah's second grade teacher. Sarah has just gotten over a divorce which is why she moved to New Bern where the storey takes place. Miles and Sarah help each other deal with their troubles until a shocking secret comes out and they have to make an important choice that will change their lives forever.
Rating: 
Summary: A Bend In The Road review
Review: A Bend In The Road is both a love novel and a mystery novel mixed in one. This makes the book more interesting to read then some of his other novels that are all about love. The book is very captivating and keeps you guessing through the whole thing. Miles the main character tends to get kind of annoying with all his anger and sometime ruins the book. The book overall though is very well written and I would recommend it to all Nicholas Sparks fans.
Rating: 
Summary: unsatisfying ending
Review: Brief summary: Miles Ryan is a deputy sheriff in a small North Carolina town. Two years earlier his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident, and now he's raising their seven-year-old son alone. Sarah Andrews is the new teacher in town. She moved to town after a divorce, which occurred as a result of her infertility. Miles and Sarah fall in love, but problems arise when new information is found regarding the hit-and-run driver.
I *wanted* to like this book, but I had a difficult time doing that. I thought the characters were one-dimensional and had very little depth. The mystery portion of the book was easily solved (the backcover alone gave a huge clue). And I thought the ending was very unsatisfying. I've read reviews that have mentioned the book as being one about `forgiveness' and apparently I just totally missed that, because I didn't see any forgiveness. Just 16 pages prior to the end of the book Miles says, "You killed my wife. I'll never forgive you, and I'll never forget." And that attitude didn't change in the last 16 pages. In the epilogue, which occurred approximately ten years later, I got the impression that Miles is still hanging on to his anger. He starts out an angry man and ends up an angry man--there was no character growth at all. His anger is, to some extent, justified, but in my opinion, he's entirely too angry. Yes, there was a tragic accident. It had a huge affect on many lives. It's hard to let go of the people that you love. The `driver' should have reacted to the situation differently. But the bottom line is that it was in fact an *unavoidable accident*. And Miles seems totally unable to accept that fact. I would have liked to seen a different ending for Miles. The book was a disappointment for me, but clearly, I'm in the minority in that opinion :)
Rating:
Summary: Another Sparks Winner!
Review: I can always count on Sparks to make me realize that life is good. No matter what gets you down, there is always someone out there that has it worse than you do. Though I have never lost a spouse, I can understand how hard it is to go on when you do loose someone close to you. This story shows us that even if you loose the person closest to you, your heart still beats and will continue to go on...even if you have other thoughts about the matter.
I found the character of Miles to be an extremely endearing character. At the beginning when he is trying to work up the nerve to ask Sarah out, it's almost like he is a little child because of the way he acts. He's scared of beginning his life over again after Missy's death and has no idea how to begin. It's really rather cute, Miles' boyishness and uncertainty rears when he meets Sarah.
Meanwhile, the young Sarah has already been through her own trying times and is far to selfless and intelligent for her age. She takes her profession seriously and reaches out a hand to a child that is struggling, and the father of that child for that matter. As she wrestles with secrets of her own, you can feel so sorry for what she is going through because Sparks brings his characters to life. The characters just ooze sweetness. This is just another enjoyable novel that I'm happy to have purchased from Amazon. Along with A Bend in the Road, I also recommend The Losers Club by Richard Perez
Rating:
Summary: Listening is to believe....
Review: I had the audio unabridged tapes. It just blew my mind. When
Miles's wife is the victim of a hit and run he is just too hurt.
Then when he meets his son's teacher named Sarah, his life seems to be on the right track to happiness. But when the secret is revealed Miles does not know if there is a future for
him and Sarah.The readers of this book made it seem so real, I was near tears.
I have read: The Notebook
The Rescue
and I will say they are all excellent reading. If you like drama with romanace Nicholas Sparks has the best. Try it you might like it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent writing that gets bogged down on occasion....
Review: I love the first line of this book: "Where does a story truly begin? In life, there are seldom clear cut beginnings, those moments when we can, in looking back, say that everything started." I read that sentence and sighed deeply - gorgeous beginning.
Most of the book followed with a satisfying flavor - I enjoyed the characters and recognized many of the familiar components in this genre. Tough, macho yet vulnerable strong guy with a difficult and heartbroken past (naturally a widower from childhood sweetheart wife), Miles Ryan and nightmare bearing, loveable soccer playing son, Jonah Miles, child meets smart, beautiful yet sadly divorced (who could have let her go?) second grade teacher, Sarah Andrews.
We can all predict what will follow.
I had somehow figured out the "who-dun-it" right as the character who did it came into clear focus.
Nonetheless, the writing and the characters were so good, I kept going.
The part that I simply couldn't continue reading was Miles' obsession and hatred of the community thugs with whom he has a lifelong rivalry. Otis, Otis, Otis. The scenes involving Otis and his brothers could all have been nixed for my reading, though I realize they are another common element of the genre..... to me, they added unnecessary pages in a 368 page book. I bet they would be fun to cast if this title is made into a movie, like some of author Nicholas Sparks other books.
The words in this book are wonderfully crafted. For that, I give 5 Stars. The execution - not as good to me - I give three stars.... Which is why I come out with a 4 rating. If you are interested in writing this genre, read it. Learn from the artistry of the words within. If you want to be entertained by engaging characters, read about Sarah. Jonah, Miles and their supporting folks (Sarah's parents, Brenda, etc) and when you see Otis and "the boys" show up, skip it.....
Rating: 
Summary: Okay book
Review: I read this book a few weeks ago while on vacation. It sucked me in and I finished it in two days (but then again I had nothing else to do but to relax).
A Bend in the Road is about a man named Miles Ryan. His wife Missy dies in a fatal car accident. The thought of it haunts him for years to come. Although Miles is still thinking about Missy all the time, he finds himself falling in love with his son Jonah's teacher Sarah Andrews. Little do they know, their lives are entwined in more ways than one.
This book, although cute, funny, sad and romantic, is incredibley predictable. Like all Spark's novels, the writing style is elementary, and undescriptive.
Good for a quick, easy read, but nothing spectacular.
Rating:
Summary: A Bend in the Road
Review: Nicholas Sparks called the book that I read A Bend in the Road. It is a love story with a murder mystery. Any love story lover would absolutely love this book. This book is very dramatic and I would give it 5 out of 5 star any day. Sparks delivers it well with a love story inside a murder with a twist at the end. Not only is it an easy to read book, both the love story and the mystery grab you from the very beginning and keep you turning page after page. So whether you enjoy the mystery of who killed Miles' wife (who writes in italics in every so chapter) or it is the love story between Sarah and Miles and the secret that makes them reexamine everything they believe in, you must read this book.
This book is about a girl named Sarah Andrews who moved to a small town called New Bern. She moved hoping to start over after going through a failed marriage and difficult divorce. In New Bern Sarah worked as a 2nd grade teacher. While teaching one of her second graders is having troubles reading, whose name was Jonah. When Sarah discovered that Jonah was having troubles reading she decided to tutor him after school. When she did this tutoring she meet Jonah's father, Miles Ryan. Miles was the deputy sheriff of New Bern, who is still after 2 years looking for the man who killed his wife in a hit-and-run accident. Miles and Sarah soon get to know each other through Jonah's tutoring. Sarah gets attached to Jonah quickly, but even more attached to Miles. As Miles and Sarah both fall for each other, they start to go on date after date. Soon they are both deeply in love. After they have been together for a while, Sarah discovers a secret that makes a sudden twist to the whole story, which could demolish her happiness with Miles and Jonah.
Rating:
Summary: Down the Long, Straight Road to Predictability
Review: Normally I am a big fan of Nicholas Sparks, but this book did not come even close to meeting, let alone exceeding my expectations. This book contains basic characters that are so cliché; it could drive any reader insane. Meet Miles Ryan- a single parent that is distraught over his lost love. His poor son Jonah has never been the same after his mother died that fateful day in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. Along comes Sarah Andrews, the ideal mother who cannot bear children. Then there is the mysterious narrator who has driven himself crazy because of the accident he caused that involved Missy Ryan so long ago. From the start I knew that I was in for an unexciting and conventional read. The first half of the book is devoted solely to the development of Miles' and Sarah's relationship. As you reach the second part, it breaks of into figuring out who Missy's killer is; as if no one knew who it was after they met him for the first time. In this book, Sparks makes most of his chapters short and leaves you hanging. He then jumps to another person's point of view and will not return for at least two chapters. He also spends too much time on insignificant details that make this book painful to read. A Bend in the Road, though it starts out fine, takes a horrible turn and quickly turns into one of the most monotonous and uneventful novels ever written by an acclaimed author.
|
