I first met Nicholas Sparks through the pages of A Walk to Remember . The poignancy that permeated the story seemed so real that it hardly felt like fiction. Then I learned it wasn’t fiction in the truest sense. His protagonist, 17-year-old Jamie Sullivan, was inspired by his sister, who died of cancer at age 33. By his own admission, Jamie’s story paralleled his sibling’s in many ways—her personality, her faith, her experiences, her longing to get married, the wonderful gift of love her husband gave her despite her terminal illness. The story didn’t exactly follow the typical romance guidelines because the happily-ever-after ending didn’t appear to happen, although Sparks insists the conclusion doesn’t say Jamie died. Even though he believed from the beginning that the cancer would take her, he couldn’t in the end state outright that she had lost her fight with the disease. (I still wonder whether part of the reason he couldn’t carry through with the finality of her death might ha...