Two by two, I thought to myself as I made my way down the stairs. London and me, father and daughter, both of us doing the best we could. Even then, I felt like I was failing her, failing at everything.
I’ve never read Nicholas Sparks before, have only seen one movie based on one of his books, so despite not really being a fan of what I presumed to be his genre, I was happy to pick this up as a book club selection; something “light” for these heavy times. Having now finished Two By Two, and thinking it was plain bad, I’m gratified to see from other reviews that even many long time fans of Sparks found this to be plain bad. Ultimately, this may have been a poor example of Sparks’ work, but even so, I simply cannot imagine ever picking him up again. Hard pass.
Where does one begin when trying to make sense of a story that makes little sense at all? At the beginning? And where is the beginning? Who knows?
In the first chapter, our narrator Russ Green tells us that if he were a wiser man, he would have listened when his older sister asked him if he really thought he should marry Vivian; he should have listened when his father asked him if he thought he should really quit his job and start his own advertising agency at thirty-five; should have listened when his mother warned him to spend as much time as possible with his daughter, London, because it all goes by so quickly. So, knowing that Russ is about to tell us about how his world fell apart, it would have been more impactful if that world had seemed worth keeping intact. Instead, we meet his terrible wife — gorgeous but a shopaholic who refuses domestic duties and turns all of Russ’ complaints back on him — and learn that his job sees Russ working long hours for a ruthless and capricious man who tends to fire employees who don’t let him hit on their wives. As for London, she’s the most special and precious little girl in the world, and while Russ really only gets to see her at bedtime and watch her on the weekends (while Vivian has her Me Time), he doesn’t so much resent time with London as wishes he didn’t have to spend that time in Vivian’s narrowly-prescribed activities. When Russ does decide to open his own agency, Vivian secretly decides to go back to work; and when Vivian is suddenly travelling for half the week, Russ is forced to balance the demands of starting up a business and essentially acting as a single father. Something will have to give.
That’s essentially the plot (with some dumb and dramatic subplots) and it all tied up exactly the way I expected it to; so I could hardly crown Nicholas Sparks the king of plotting. **spoiler** Early on, Mallory asked me what I was reading and I gave her an overview that ended right after Russ’ sister developed a cough after bringing their dad to the hospital because their mother had a terror of him getting “the cancer”. She came into the room again later and asked me, “So, has Marge got the cancer yet?” And I nodded and said, “She just started coughing up blood,” and then gave her another plot update. “Well,” Mal said, “Let me know if Russ and Emily move to Atlanta in the end to be nearer to London or if the billionaire breaks up with Vivian so she has to move back to Charlotte as the third wheel.” Flip a coin, Mr. Sparks, it’s all the same to me.) **end spoiler** But what I really resent is how dumb Sparks treats his readers. Everything is told instead of shown; everything is completely spelled out. Before taking London to the zoo, Russ says about the lions: “I hope they don’t have any mean ones like Scar,” I was referring, of course, to the villain in the movie The Lion King. The mother of a little boy says to Russ: “You get sugar and spice and everything nice,” she said, referring to the nursery rhyme. “Meanwhile, I get the snail.” And, worse, after telling us repeatedly that their father is a gruff and undemonstrative type of guy, Russ explains about their dad renoing his sister’s house when she gets sick:
Marge knew that our dad had never been a man of words, nor had he ever been openly affectionate. But through his labors, she could see that in his own way he was shouting his love for her at the top of his lungs, hoping that she could somehow hear what he’d always found so difficult to say.
That kind of unnecessary observation happens constantly and I totally resent an author who assumes I'm too dumb to figure out something like that for myself. And, I understand that Sparks is essentially a romance writer, but is he a famously wholesome one? Russ complains about going to a comedy night and the first comic was “too profane”; after he tells his sister about his wife doing something particularly terrible, Russ notes, “When she referred to Vivian with a term synonymous with female dogs, I echoed the sentiment”; and when Russ finds himself attracted to another woman, he observes, “Despite the casual mom-at-the-park wardrobe, she seemed to glow with health and vitality. I couldn’t stop staring at her thick hair and unblemished skin.” This really didn’t feel like Sparks was writing for an adult audience.
This was long and dull and pointless; I have more complaints but I'm not putting any more energy into this; plain bad. One and a half stars, rounded up only because I've reserved one star for the worst book I've ever read.
