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   Summary and Book Reviews

The Rescue: Summary and book reviews of The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks, plus links to an excerpt from The Rescue and a biography of Nicholas Sparks.

The Rescue

The Rescue
by Nicholas Sparks
Hardcover: Sep 2000,
352 pages.
Paperback: Aug 2001,
400 pages.

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Critics' Opinion:   good
Readers' Rating:  Five Stars
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BOOK SUMMARY

BookPage calls Nicholas Sparks, "a modern master of fateful love stories," and his phenomenal bestsellers- The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, and A Walk to Remember- have made him one of America's most beloved storytellers. Here, in his newest work, Sparks tells a story about making the greatest commitment of all...loving someone forever.

The Rescue

When confronted by raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks - risks no one else in the department would ever take - to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor can't bring himself to make: He can't fall in love. For all his adult years, Taylor has sought out women who need to be rescued, women he leaves as soon as their crisis is over, as soon as the relationship starts to become truly intimate.

Then, one day, a raging, record-breaking storm hits his small Southern town. Denise Holton, a young single mother, is driving through it when her car skids off the road. With her is her four-year-old son, Kyle, a boy with severe learning disabilities and for whom she has sacrificed everything. Unconscious and bleeding, she-but not Kyle-will be found by Taylor McAden. And when she wakes, the chilling truth becomes clear to both of them: Kyle is gone.

During the search for Kyle, the connection, the lifeline, between Taylor and Denise takes root. Taylor doesn't know that this rescue will be different from all the others, demanding far more than raw physical courage. That it will lead him to the possibility of his own rescue from a life lived without love. That it will require him to open doors to his past that were slammed shut by pain. That it will dare him to live life to the fullest by daring to love.

In The Rescue Nicholas Sparks weaves his inimitable spell, immersing us in the passions and the surprising complexities of modern relationships-and in doing so, teaching us something about our own.

BOOK REVIEWS

Media Reviews

Average  Kirkus Reviews
High-stakes weepmeister Sparks (A Walk to Remember, 1999, etc.) opts for a happy ending his fourth time out. His writing has improved-though it's still the equivalent of paint-by-numbers-and he makes use this time of at least a vestige of credible psychology.

Good  Library Journal
Though detractors may say he writes "like a girl," the would-be king of romance continues to please his readers.... This novel will appeal to female readers seeking another romantic story with a happy ending.

Good  Publishers Weekly
Because these characters are preordained lovers, their feelings prescribed by fiction conventions, their psychology amounts to little more than a profusion of banality. Yet Sparks's narrative acquires immediacy when his characters' exaggerated emotions compel immoderate actions, and his readers will surely delight at these moments of heightened expressiveness.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Kristen
Glued to your hands
As goal oriented as I am, I'm not the kind of person that would take a whole entire day to read a book. To be honest, besides school I never once read more than 100 pages in a day...to my surprise (and my family's) I never dropped the book. As I...   Read More

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Audrey
The Rescue - Heartwarming Book
I too read this book in two days. I absolutely loved it, and identified with all the aspects of their relationship - the falling in love, the heartbreak. Also the relationship between Kyle the young boy and his mum made me cry. Thoroughly...   Read More

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