Page 30 - Seniorstoday February 2024 Issue
P. 30
that remained on the top selling charts for The Fault In Our Stars (2012):
months and was turned into a hit movie, Jon Green’s novel, aiming at
was what is called a four-hanky weepie, a young adult readership,
and has been copied ad nauseum by other is about two teenagers who
writers, aiming for the market of soft- suffer from terminal illness.
hearted readers. Hazel and Augustus, both
awkward because of their
Love In The Time Of Cholera (1985): unusual circumstances,
Gabrial Garcia Marquez’s know they haven’t long to live, but want
richly-imagined novel is to enjoy the highs of love while they still
about Florentino Ariza, can. Even though it is about impending
who has been waiting for tragedy, the book is lively, witty and full of
50 years for his true love tenderness as the two teenagers love like
to return. While waiting, there is no tomorrow, because for them,
he has several affairs, there isn’t. The book became a best-seller,
but remains devoted to his childhood was made into a movie and is still popular
sweetheart Fermina Daza. After half a with young readers, and maybe older ones
century, the man who married Fermina too.
dies. An elderly Florentino is free to
declare his love, but does he deserve it? Normal People (2018):
A sad, funny and very readable novel Sally Rooney’s intricate
of impossible love by the Nobel Prize- and intimate love story is
winning Colombian writer. about a mismatched couple,
Marianne and Connell,
The Notebook (1996): whose passion waxes
Nicholas Sparks writes a and wanes, but they also
lot of romantic fiction, this share a closeness that is
one tops his popular list. between love and friendship. The novel,
Noah and Allie are in love, acclaimed as one of the best love stories
but fate, families and World of the 21st century, it follows Marianne
War conspire to keep them and Connell Waldron through secondary
apart. The story is narrated school and college. There are issues of
by an old man, who is caring for a woman class differences, family complications
suffering from dementia and the layers of and the way two people who are obviously
plot that have brought them to this point made for each other, are unable to truly
are uncovered gradually. Readers who go understand their own feelings or simplify
for tear-jerkers, this simple plot of true love the complexity of their relationship.
that overcomes every hurdle is the ideal
read, with many twists and an overdose
of emotions. Melancholy yet uplifting, it
is easy to say why it is loved by so many
readers, while an equal number gag on its
manipulative narration.
30
