A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

“When I was seventeen, my life changed forever… I’m fifty-seven years old, but even now I remember everything from that year, down to the smallest details. I relive that year often in my mind, bringing it back to life, and I realize that when I do, I always feel a strange combination of sadness and joy… This is the story; I promise to leave nothing out.

First you will smile, and then you will cry—don’t say you haven’t been warned…

And so begins a tale of true love, first love, and everlasting love that you will never forget…”

The book narrates the story of a typical seventeen year old young man whom life is bound to soar beyond conviction. He’s name is Landon Carter, the only son of a famous politician in Beaufort, North Carolina. Coming from a wealthy and powerful clan, Landon is expected to cover a good life, especially at school. Being the famed person as he is, Landon is not the emblematic girl – magnet guy. He just dated a girl or two and even avowed that he’d been in love. He goes to a Southern Baptist Church, only to make fun of the preacher and his sermons.

Landon decided to take the ever boring drama class, instead of chemistry. The senior class was commissioned to do the drama play that year. Jamie Sullivan, a sweet and infamous daughter of Hegbert Sullivan (the preacher of the Baptist church where Landon and his family attends to…) will render the part of the angel on the play. Not that they are given any choices or whatsoever…but everyone in town is anticipating that this is going to be a very special event for everybody, especially for Rev. Sullivan.

Landon and his circle of friends are not very fond of Jamie. Jamie seemed to be strange to hang around with, since she likes to read and bring her Bible at all times. For Landon she’s not the girlfriend type. He wasn’t even thinking of befriending the girl. Jamie Sullivan is some sort of….plain!

Landon was elected president for their school’s student council. It’s not like he wishes to be part of it but his father have had high hopes for him and it would be another credit for his college applications. As the voted student leader, he took part on preparing every single detail for their homecoming dance. Everyone were all prepared for the said event, except for Landon. He doesn’t have a date. Given with no other choices, since most hot-beautiful girls were already taken, he decided to ask the Bible bearer Jamie Sullivan to go with him and is expecting to be the laughing stock when the affair will finally be over.

“You have to promise that you won’t fall in love with me!” is the only thing that Jamie could ask in return for going out with Landon on the homecoming dance.

Landon reckons that everything will return to normal after the homecoming episode. He and Jamie will never be seen together anymore, that would be a total relief for him. Of course, he couldn’t get away from being tease and poke fun at by his buddies after the event. But for Landon, they will soon forget about it.

The play is fast approaching; too few people are participating. Dear Jamie is worried sick since her father was the one who wrote it and it is said to be very special for Rev. Sullivan. Jamie then approaches Landon for help. Landon caught off guard, was asked to depict the lead role. It means only one thing…he’ll be with Jamie for the rest of the coming days until the play is concluded. Practices and rehearsals brought them together. Landon finally learns the real beauty of Jamie Sullivan’s world.

They both spent Christmas eve together at the orphanage. It was then when Landon confirms her true feelings for Jamie. He had completely fallen in love to the school’s sole saint. Landon Carter knew that the feelings he had for Jamie is fully irretrievable.

Days passed …the whole thing seemed so perfect for both Landon and Jamie. This is definitely love, be in any form and meaning. LOVE is it! Until Jamie came to tell Landon the secret she and her father kept for quite some time. Jamie Sullivan is dying… she has an incurable leukemia.

The whole thing is too much for Landon to bear. The following days were gravely difficult to tolerate for everyone who heard the announcement made by Rev. Sullivan at the congregation. Jamie and Landon’s schoolmates felt sorry for both but they couldn’t do anything except to pray for Jamie’s recovery.

Jamie once told Landon, “Maybe God has a better plan for me than I have for myself…” Jamie grew weaker in each and every treatment. If only Landon could trade his life for Jamie, but then again, he has to face reality. He asked God for the things that she could do for her sweet Jamie while she’s still with him. Thus, on March 12, 1959 Jamie Sullivan is married to Landon Carter. Landon is extremely happy, though few days after…the person he unconditionally love was taken away from him. He is pleased to ever fulfill Jamie’s dreams and the miracle he’s been praying for finally was answered. Landon Carter was able to grow up like a real man with a purpose, all thanks to Jamie Sullivan-Carter.

Nicholas Sparks achieve to touch a chord in my heart with this one, not only that he wrote it with complete passion and sincerity, I have to agree that his novels are something that you won’t eventually get over with in just a matter of days… weeks… months and even years. I owned a copy of this paperback since December 04, 2002 but in every year that had passed…I never fail to read it over and over again once or twice in a year.

The Addams Family by Jordan Horowitz

Do you know a family or a group of people who lives in a big mansion with bizarre existing practices? Well, I do. The head of the house welcomes his guest with a sword fight. The mother loves tending her roses, only to appreciate the stems and cuts off the blossoms, just for the fact that she finds them ugly. Their son collects signs such as “Bridge Out” and experiment with some secret formula, then shrank to the size of a mouse. And there’s their daughter who loves to play with headless dolls. To sum it up, the entire household is jam-packed with eccentric stuff.

Meet the Addams Family, the creepiest yet lovable family of the entire planet. The book was adapted by Jordan Horowitz from the screenplay, written by Caroline Thompson & Larry Wilson which is also based on the Characters created by Charles Addams. This paperback is comprised with 32 pages with lots of pictures from the 1991 movie.

The story opens up like a normal day for the Addamses’ on their haunted mansion. Granny is fixing her fog machine; Pugsley Addams is with his deviant experiments, Wednesday Addams lost a baby tooth and kept it in a special box crammed with fangs and glass eyes. Morticia Addams is cutting the blossoming roses until the stems are all there is left. Gomez Addams is playing chess with Thing, a crawling hand.

Surrounding the Addamses’ huge residence is a gate which has a mind of its own. There came Tully Alford, their lawyer. Gate isn’t fond of Tully so that morning, Gate closes itself on the tail of the lawyer’s coat. Tully was greeted by Lurch, the giant butler with his usual friendly growl. Then he met up with Gomez and started their sword fight, like what they normally do before a serious meeting.

Tully is after the money of the Addams Family, coincidentally he met Gordon, a man that has a strong resemblance to Gomez’ long lost brother. He then prepared a scheme to have Gordon play the long lost Uncle Fester part so that they could sneak in to the Addamses’ vault with ease.

The entire family was very happy to see Gordon acting the part of Uncle Fester. It was a pretty strange experience for Gordon to be living in the Addams Family mansion but he’ll do what it takes to get his hands on the Addamses’ treasures. Until it finally came to his senses that somehow…somewhere within him…it felt like he is genuinely part of the family. He actually began to appreciate the peculiarity of the family he’s living with.

One day, Tully told the Addamses’ that Fester is the real owner of the Addams mansion. He throws them out and locked the house. They could never believe that their Uncle Fester could do such horrible thing to his beloved family. They rented a motel and move in. Lurch got a job that sells vacuum cleaner door to door and people immediately buy his product just to get rid of him. Puglsey and Wednesday sells lemonade with steam coming out of them. Gomez felt very sad about the whole event. And so, Morticia decided to go and talk to Fester.

Tully and his allies weren’t able to find the vault so they captured Morticia to tell them how to get into the vault. Thing was fast enough to tell Gomez the details about Morticia’s whereabouts. He then went on to rescue his wife. Just when he thought that he was helpless, Gordon instantly helped him save Morticia. A bolt of lightning struck him in the head; he then realized that he is part of the Addams Family. He is the long lost Uncle Fester after all! By Halloween everything was back to normal in the Addams family abode.