This is a very emotional story about a mother who keeps a diary for her son, Nicholas and her wonderful relationship with Nicholas's father, Matt. How they met, how they lived as a family, the things they did together. It goes back and forth between the Diary and Katie, who was Matt's girlfriend, and her feeling and emotions as she is reading the diary, and her own relationship with Matt. Katie is reading the diary after Matt has broken off their relationship and has sent it to her to help answer some of the questions as to why he broke it off. During the process of her reading, Katie finds out she is pregnant and has to decide what to do about that. Finally, after finishing the painful to read diary she goes in search of Matt to tell him about the baby and what she has learned reading the diary.
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The review of this Book prepared by Amy in Wisconsin
Katie and Matt made the perfect couple. Their friends expected them to be married soon. She had good news for him and planned a romantic evening to share the good news. Her excitement shattered as Matt picked that very night to disappear from her life. He did leave one thing behind. He wanted her to read a very personal and special diary, in the hopes she would understand why he could not stay. Katie reads only a few entries at a time to absorb the shock. Matt was, or had been married. They also had a son. Katie struggles with the unfolding diary entries written by Suzanne, wife to Matt, and mother to Nicholas. Suzanne had addressed her diary to her son to record for him who his parents were and what events happened in their lives. This proved to be painful for Katie as she wondered if she and Matt would ever get back together. She knew the answer to her question lay within the diary.
The review of this Book prepared by Tracey Ray
Suzanne was Matthew's first wife and Nicholas was Matthew's son. Katie was Matthew's lover from the city. Matthew never liked to talk about his past and Katie wondered why. Matthew gave Katie a diary that Suzanne had written to Nicholas to tell him what her life was like before he came along. As Katie began to read the diary she began to understand why he did not like to talk about his past. The reason was because his first wife, Suzanne and his first son, Nicholas had died in a car accident. Katie now knew why it hurt so badly for Matthew to talk about the past.
Little, Brown; Jul 2001;, 22.95; 266 pp.
ISBN: 0316969443
New York book editor Katie Wilkinson believed that she found her soul mate in poet-house painter Matt Harrison. However, instead of a lifetime together, they share a year before Matt vanishes. After disappearing from her life, Matt mails Katie a diary written by his wife Suzanne.
Katie cannot help but read the journal that Suzanne has written to her and Matt's son. She explains how she was a yuppie doctor in Boston until she suffered a heart attack in her mid thirties. Knowing she needed a lifestyle change, Suzanne fled to Martha's Vinyard where she falls in love with Matt. They marry and have a child. As she reads, Katie begins to feel she knows Suzanne and Nicholas as old friends. Still even she wonders if she should try to see Matt one last time once she finishes the cherished diary lovingly written by a mother to a son?
Fans of James Patterson's powerful Cross mysteries will find SUZANNE'S DIARY FOR NICHOLAS quite a departure for the popular author. There is a mystery of sorts and plenty of suspense but in a different manner than usual for a James Patterson novel, but no murders or crimes are committed. Still, the writer flexes his muscles as he provides a strong, insightful, yet teary character study that looks closely at loss through the souls of Suzanne and Matt and the reactions of Katie. Using his usual switching from first to third and back to first case, Mr. Patterson provides a warm, somewhat overly maudlin tale that will stir the audience to want more dramas of this sort from a talented scribe.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
