Trying not to love, but loving anyways

Kaleigh Walsh

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks

“ That’s the thing about life. A lot of the time it isn’t easy at all. We just have to try to make the best of it”. Life isn’t about rushing through everything or about how easy things are. It’s about taking things slow and making the best of every moment which was a central theme in this book.

Safe Haven is all about a girl named Katie who comes from the Boston area to South Port, North Carolina in hopes to escape an abusive husband. She gets a job working at the local diner and moves into a small rental house with the money she has saved. She meets Jo her new neighbor and the become good friends. One day when Katie was doing her grocery shopping at the local store she meets a widowed Alex and his daughter. Katie visits the store often and one day at the store something happens to Alex’s son and Katie watches his daughter as he tries to help his son. Eventually both Katie and Alex discover the feelings they have for each other and start to hang out together and eventually start seeing each other. Meanwhile in Boston, Katie’s husband Kevin starts to wonder where she is and how he can find her. When he does find out where she is living based on her new identity he is determined to find her and bring her home so they can “ start over”. On the night of a carnival Kevin finds Katie along with Alex and his kids. Alex goes to run an errand and Katie stays with the kids at Alex’s apartment above his shop. Kevin had followed them from the carnival back to the apartment and starts a fire to get the kids and Katie out of the apartment. In this time he is able to get Katie and bring her back to her house where Alex follows in hopes of saving her. At the house, Alex receives an injury and Kevin loses his life. Once Alex has recovered from his injuries he gives Katie a letter his late wife Carly wanted him to give to a woman he ever thought of marrying. We realize at this point that Jo was just a figure of Katie's imagination and was actually Alex’s late wife Carly.

I recommend Safe Haven for any teens who love romance-suspense novels because it has a little bit of both in it and makes for a really great read. This book was one of the most interesting novels I have read because it captured your attention, and was suspenseful and romantic at the same time. There were parts of this book where you didn’t know what would happen next and that's what drew you in and made you want to keep reading a find out what would happen next and to whom something might happen to I would give this book a 9/10 stars because I feel like we could have gotten a little more information in the end about what happens to Alex and Katie. Overall this book was really good and had a lot of detail put in and it really pulled you in and made you want to keep reading.