The Wedding-Review

The Wedding

By: Nicholas Sparks

Synopsis:

After 30 years of marriage a man realizes that the casual comforts of his relationship with his wife has pushed them in different life directions. Worried about the potential consequences if their relationship stays “as-is” Wilson Lewis decides to do something about it. When his daughter announces her engagement he is challenged to find a way to go through with his plans while his wife is tied up planning the wedding.

Review:

A few days after I finished the book, I realized there was something I had missed. Once I figured it out, it struck a chord and really began to resonate. That resonation brought my rating up to 2 ½ stars. (Disclaimer: I knew the end of the story before I started reading. Had I not; I’m confident my rating would have been higher. What can I say, when the climax is known, the rating suffers.) 

Originally I thought, this book was a fairytale disguised as reality and wondered how many people would read its pages then sit back and wait for their fairytale to happen. I guess for some, dreams come true with little effort and little communication but for the rest of us we have to work for it. I’m always bothered when stories make problems seem one sided. I mean come on, if you are going to allow someone else to treat you any less than what you are worth then don’t you contribute to the problem also? I say, “Own your expectations!” With that exclamation, the lights finally started to flicker on.

The main character was telling this story from his perspective. Perhaps in another book, we would be able to see the efforts that his wife was making but this book was all about him and what he was going to do to fix the problem. If we are ever going to make things better, we need to be willing to take ALL of the responsibility upon ourselves and work like crazy to make up for the loses.

We do not have the power within us to make others do anything. We only have the power to influence others for good. But no matter how you slice it, the decision to change rests within each individual. We live in a world were it is acceptable to shun responsibility and blame others for our shortcomings. If all of us could find our contribution to the problem and work like mad to remedy that, then couldn’t we inspire others to do the same and consequently change the world? One can dream. Perhaps there is a caveat. If we take the responsibility of a problem on our shoulders, we will change. In the midst of change, we run the risk of losing ourselves. (But then again, is that really such a bad thing?)