Title: Counting Miracles (link)
Author: Nicholas Sparks
Published: 2024
Genre: Fiction- Romance/Contemporary/Chick Lit
My rating: 2/5… I wanted to like this more than I did.
My overall opinion: This is the sort of character driven story where nothing much really happens, even the big action at the end wasn’t all that exciting. Character stories can plod along for awhile, but eventually I got bored.
Summary: This is the story of Tanner, an ex army ranger who is sort of at loose ends. Raised by his grandparents after his mother died in childbirth, Tanner never knew his father. On her deathbed, his grandmother leaves him with the name of his father from Asheboro, NC. Feeling adrift in life, Tanner decides to head to Asheboro to track down his father. On his first night there, he gets into a fender bender in a parking lot and comes to meet Kaitlyn, a doctor and single mom that causes him to develop feelings. Unknowingly, Kaitlyn might be the woman he loves and the link to finding out about his father.
Liked: My mom and I went to Asheboro, NC last summer and visited the zoo, so I liked that the setting was familiar and close to home. I also loved the descriptions of and the appreciation for nature in this book since the characters live near the Uwharrie Forest.
Disliked: This is one of those books that overly describes things in great detail. (I don’t need to know step by step how Kaitlyn swept away crumbs, wrung out the sponge, and wiped down the countertops after dinner while she daydreamed about Tanner.) Nicholas Sparks also goes to great lengths to make sure you know that his characters are good, religious, ethical people . Like a lot of other popular novels, this one also includes some politics and moral commentary that don’t add anything to the story and which personally I could have lived without. My biggest dislike was the stupid moment of conflict between Kaitlyn and Tanner. We are made to believe that of course she was right to she get mad at him and expect that he would uproot his whole life to stay in Asheboro with her after they’d gone on three dates!
Reminds Me Of: Every other book Nicholas Sparks has ever written. He’s definitely got a formula that works, and if you like his books you’ll probably like this one too! I’ve only read a few of his novels, but it reminded me a lot of his book the Best of Me.
