At First Sight (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "See, it's simple, Alvin said..." (more)
Key Phrases: amniotic band syndrome, Boone Creek, New York, Mayor Gherkin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When we last left 37-year-old Jeremy Marsh (a scant six months ago, in Sparks's April pub True Believer), the science columnist had traveled from his New York base to Boone Creek, N.C., to get a story—and ended up falling in love with Lexie Darnell, the 30-year-old town librarian. Now Lexie's pregnant—but it's true love (and a portable job) that's allowing divorcé Jeremy to move down so they can marry and build a life together. The book centers on the tension-filled runup to the wedding. Sparks pulls out all the smalltown stops—psychic grandmother, meddling mayor, sullen townie ex, jealous best friends—and offers Mars/Venus commentary on what makes his characters tick. Jeremy's writer's block, instead of heightening the will-they-or-won't-they tension, is as enervating for readers as it is for him. More compelling are the mysterious e-mails Jeremy receives that suggest Lexie may not be telling the truth (about who the father is, for one thing), and the character of Lexie's psychic grandmother, Doris, who has correctly predicted the sex of every child born in the town. As the wedding gets closer (and house renovations suck more and more money from Jeremy's dwindling savings), Jeremy and Lexie have some serious talking to do, and Sparks throws in a substantial zinger at the end. It's majorly manipulative and totally effective. Have plenty of tissues on hand. (Oct. 18)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The relationship between journalist Jeremy Marsh and librarian Lexie Darnell that began in True Believer (2005) has now progressed. Jeremy is moving from New York to Boone Creek, North Carolina, as they plan for their wedding and the birth of their child. A friend of Jeremy's warns him that he really doesn't know Lexie, and asks him if he's sure that he's in love. With the seeds of suspicion planted, Jeremy starts receiving mysterious e-mails that also cast doubt on their relationship. Add to that the fact that he is dealing with writer's block and that he has to come to terms with a change in lifestyle as an urbanite now living in the rural South. This is a man under duress. To avoid gossip, he and Lexie are maintaining separate residences and keeping the pregnancy a secret. Lexie is comfortable with the town's rules of behavior, but Jeremy is at a loss and finds himself tense and unsure about the future of what he thought was the perfect match. With his trademark sensitivity, Sparks delves into the nitty-gritty of relationships, and considers the sacrifices that each partner has to make in order to have a successful marriage. And readers beware: this is multiple-hankie romance. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; First printing edition (October 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446532428
• ISBN-13: 978-0446532426
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (181 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,864 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy, sad story about life, love and loss, November 5, 2005

By	Carolyn Rowe Hill "author of 'The Dead Angel" (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews

Written in that special way that only Nicholas Sparks can, At First Sight is a must read. If you and your love are contemplating marriage, you can learn a lot from this book. I especially liked Jeremy's father's advice to him and Doris's advice to her granddaughter, Lexie. To get the full effect of this story, I recommend that you read True Believer by Sparks. It is the precursor to this book and by reading it you will better understand what happens in the continuing love story between big city (New York) boy, Jeremy Marsh, and small town (Boone Creek, North Carolina) girl, Lexie Darnell. I learned to like Lexie much better in AFS. When she listens to her grandmother, she grows.

Nicholas Sparks's writing seems to come so naturally. His dialog is believable and well thought out. The scenes he describes come to life and he can make the reader laugh, sigh or cry as appropriate to the moment about which he's writing. I don't want to give away any of this story other than to say it's about the struggle to adjust to one another when a couple that knows each other only a short time decides to marry. They have so much to learn about one another (which is why it is generally believed that couples know each other a couple of years before taking that long walk down the aisle). There is love, devoted friendship, anger, jealousy, betrayal, and deep sadness in this story. When I finished it, I just sat for a time and reflected on all it meant: its beauty; the ah-hahs I felt when I read sequences that I could identify with personally...the ones that made me laugh or sigh, and those that brought tears to my eyes.

If you're thinking about a gift for the holidays, I'd recommend giving True Believer and At First Sight as a package to a good friend who enjoys stories of life, love and romance (by the way, the title for this book is most fitting).

Carolyn Rowe Hill

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A tortured journey...for the reader, June 30, 2006

By	M. L. Dias "Joycean bildungsroman" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: At First Sight (Hardcover)

*Note: This review contains storyline spoilers.

Nicholas Sparks is one of the few contemporary writers I follow. That said, I'm thinking of cutting my ties after reading this book. I am all for sad endings, but they are not always appropriate simply in the name of the "Kleenex" factor, or in the hopes of pumping out yet another Hollywood tearjerker. I felt as if the entire 600-page saga was a total waste of time after finishing At First Sight--we suffered with Jeremy and Lexie through an endless onslaught of arguing, getting to know one another AFTER the ring was on her finger, and all sorts of lies/omissions of truth sprinkled throughout. And for what? A maudlin, contrived scene in the last three pages of the book? In hindsight, the ending was also a bit too predictable, seeing as how the introduction of the book pretty much gave it away.

My other problem with this book was Lexie herself. Perhaps it was a manipulation on Sparks' part, writing the second novel almost entirely from Jeremy's point of view (except for one scene between Lexie and her grandmother, Doris), but I often found myself downright annoyed with her. She lied to Jeremy twice and didn't tell him about her past even after Jeremy had opened up and told her about his fertility problem in True Believer. I felt such disparity in their relationship--Jeremy was expected to give himself completely to her, while she kept secrets and nagged at him incessantly. What person wouldn't break under such constant pressure after turning his life upside down for another person (who never had to make any sacrifices to be with him)? Sparks didn't redeem her until the last arc of the story (the latter half of her pregnancy), which dragged on far too long and seemed to be nothing more than filler. Moreover, some of the bedtime scenes during their early marriage, during which she would run hot and cold on him and expect him to be fluent in her convoluted body language, did nothing to help her already-damaged character. I didn't find any of her nagging to be charming (in one scene, she nags him when he wants to order a porterhouse steak at a restaurant, so he orders the figure-friendly tuna instead--at which point, she says mournfully, "Oh, I was hoping you would order the steak so that I could try a bite.")--in fact, it was woefully childish. Sparks presented a very simplistic, hackneyed view of marriage and the communication divide between men and women--it almost makes you wonder how the same writer produced such rich, complex couples as Noah/Allie and Garret/Theresa.

Jeremy's rift with Alvin was another glaring weakness in this story. It came out of nowhere, and Sparks simply dropped it a few pages later. The narrative presented a very one-sided view of what Alvin did, which, while manipulative, was an expression of concern for his friend. The truth was, Lexie did lie to him, and Alvin erred only in the way he chose to help Jeremy. The book ends without ever reexploring their lost friendship, which I don't "buy," since he was Jeremy's confidant in both books.

Honestly, I feel as if Sparks tried twice to pull off a Shreve-ian twist at the end here (first with the Alvin storyline, and then at the end of the book), and failed in the execution. Sometimes, bittersweet doesn't work. In the case of a two-volume, 600-page saga with limited character development and loose plot ends, it definitely didn't work for me. In the end, Sparks tried to dress up the Jeremy/Lexie relationship with the trappings of the supernatural to compensate for the lack of actual chemistry between them--but their relationship didn't stand out to me at all. The only thing ghastly about their love story was how long it dragged out and how little payoff there was for the reader in the end.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wish I never read it, January 17, 2006

By	Sandra A. Massa "SAS" (Bristol, R.I. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hi, I bought this book in September and just finished it in January. I know there was not as much time to read because of the holidays...but I dreaded picking up the book, it did not hold my attention. The ending made me raise my voice to I dare him write such a cheap ending...and all that detail about the prgenancy itself..to much info. I will not give up on him and I do have the Wedding on my desk right now, I still have faith, Take your time we would rather have less of really good writing, then a whole bunch of cra...