Nick Sparks

Have you ever felt that you're trying to "break in" an author? When you read his first book, you find yourself going over the lines and understanding the dictionary words. And then gradually, you feel that you get a hang of it, it's full speed ahead and you read a hundred pages in one sitting.

When I started reading Harry Potter, I had to get used to Rowling's English writing. With Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, I got used to his never ending sentences and stories that tended to loop within themselves. And with Nicholas Sparks, it's all about the simplicity, the details and the romance.

If there's one author that I feel obliged to collect all books he's written, it'd be Nicholas Sparks. I broke into his writing years and years before. And right now, his books feel like weekend reading, something light, something very familiar to me.

There are a lot of similarities in his books -- countless moonlight walks along the shore, a handful of steak-and-salad dinners, and to a point the characters seem to follow the same line of thinking. But however similar, Nick Sparks somehow crafts these different love stories that stand independently from each other. And I do hope that there are a lot more to come.

For his style of writing, for retaining the romantic within me, and mostly for his familiarity, Nick Sparks stays as my favorite author. :)