This book is my ALL-TIME favourite book :) I absolutely love it. James Patterson has done a brilliant job with the story and its presentation. I've read this book a thousand times. It makes you think about a 101 things related to life and its twists & turns. The story helped me understand that life is not always sweet, not always fair and things do not always turn out the way we want them to. But if we are patient and just keep going - we'll eventually find things that are sweet, that are fair and somewhere along the way true love as well :)

This book was excellent!! Bring the tissues.

What happens when Katie Wilkinson, a young NY editor, finds the perfect man? Matt Harrison was a writer, an original thinker, and everything she'd always wanted; he is the love of her life. And then one day he disappears from her life, without explanation, leaving behind a diary for her to read.

And over the next few weeks, Katie reads, in the voice of Suzanne, the story of her love for Matt and the beautiful baby Nicholas whom they created together.

Reading the love story with every poignant detail unfolding in the beautiful setting of Martha's Vineyard helps Katie finally come to understand Matt. Finally reaching the last page of the diary, she now fears, more than ever, that nothing she can offer will ever be enough.

What happens to Katie and Matt after she finishes the diary? Will she finally have her happy ending, or will she be destined to grieve over lost love forever?

"Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" is an unexpected love story from James Patterson, best known for his suspense thrillers and mysteries. This departure has been a page-turning delight; it was a story that kept me wishing and hoping for more as I came to know the characters on the pages. Five stars.

Very sweet and beautiful. I kinda wished we got to learn more about Katie. Too bad there isn’t a sequel

SPOILERS!!!

A while back someone suggested that I read a James Patterson book to help me get into writing. The first one I picked up was "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas", thinking that anything by him would do. It was one of the worst mistakes that I ever made. There are just so many issues that I had with this book, I’m amazed that it was published. It seems that Patterson was just set out to insult the intelligence of his readers, hoping that they would see his name and grab up this book, giving him his one chance to tell a story based off a tragic life event he experienced first hand. While the story is “tragic” and yes it is a “romance” it’s just poorly written.

"She gripped the carousel horse with her thighs as it went not just up and down, but also around and around." Yes, those are the lines you get while reading this book and in fact I noticed that if you broke down the paragraphs and took out just random sentences, you would have no clue as to what was going on. A lot of three word sentences just thrown around made this an easy read for even a seven year old. I think even Harlequin's most romantic author would be ashamed to publish these cloying phrases. The whole discourse of the story is sickeningly predictable. I felt like I was reading a very, very long Hallmark card, even though I think Hallmark wouldn’t publish this either. Sappy, trite, pre-packaged sentiment expand it into a novel, this is a DREADFUL book, predictable and poorly written. It reads like the work of a love struck teenager who writes really bad poetry. The editorial staff must have been on some heavy drugs if they thought this was a work of art. If you love good writing, stay far away from this one.


Besides the bad poetry, Patterson name drops all throughout the book. Short and simple, he lacks in the area of imagery and expects his readers to know all these people and places that he’s talking about. Sorry, never been to Martha’s Vineyard, no clue if it’s a beach, city or just tourist attraction. I’m sure that he thought that the references to pop culture sprinkled throughout would make him seem hip but instead came off cheesy and desperate. I mean, every time we went to a new place we were told that we were in “Tavern Inn” nothing more, nothing about how it looked, none of the five senses touched. Half of the people he named dropped, I had no clue to who they were. He threw in movies, t.v. shows, actors, singers, books, authors, big companies…it was sad.

The characters are flat and improbably perfect. Katie, the pregnant heroine of the story who completely understands everything and loves unconditionally no matter what, is left by the wonderful poet Matt Harrison, who gives her the perfect diary that his perfect, dearly departed wife Suzanne wrote for their much-loved, perfect baby Nicholas, in order to explain why he can’t give his heart to her fully. She is rich and beautiful and tragically wounded, he is rich and beautiful and tragically wounded. One acts upon his grief or anger by doing something hurtful to the one he loves and loves him. So now it’s time to find out why the hurt and anger and how can they find happiness and come to their senses and woo the other back. The situation is totally contrived.

Another issue I had was with the style and tone of voice. You go from each character and yet they say the same catch phrases “Isn’t it lucky?” “Mat, Suzanne and Nicholas as one” all written in the same voice, all sounding like the same person. This was a book written for their son and yet the mom is constantly with the “Mat did this, Mat did that. You should have seen Mat Nicky.” Isn’t Mat his father? Why not say “Your father did this. You should have seen your father Nicky.” What was worst was that every time Mat talked to his wife he asked her questions and made statements using her first name. Never was there “Hey do you like this poem? What do you think about the house? I want to go down to the beach.” No, always “Hey Suzanne would you like to go to the beach with me Suzanne?” Come on! And what was worst, she talked the same way, and so did Katie, written in exactly the same voice. I also noticed that the tense was off in this book. One second she’s talking about how she loves “Nicky Mouse” little toes and the next second she can’t wait to meet him…Confused? So was I. She also knows things that she shouldn’t know, like Mat making plans for her, how Mat thinks and feels even though he’s not said a word about it. And why does she bother to tell about the other guy she was dating and her relationship with him…and the one before him. Let alone the sex details with her husband and just stuff that you wouldn’t tell your child. She talks more about her relationship with her husband then she does about the child…sad.

The suspense falls flat, you know what is going to happen as soon as Katie gets the dairy. You have to be slow not to see that there is an issue here, why would someone have a diary that is meant for someone else to read unless both the writer and the recipient didn’t still exist. It ignores all realities of motherhood. Suzanne continues working as a doctor and her husband as a painter, where’s the childcare? She has this heart condition and yet is home with the baby even though she loses consciousness tons of times and can’t seem to use birth control. She’s a doctor, she knew that having another baby would be a risk and yet she doesn’t use birth control and has this “Surprise” preg. She’s a doctor!!! And why leave her at home with the baby after she was on the verge of death so many times?? How many heart patients are there out there who are encouraged to lug a kid around after all she’s been through?.

If you think there is the slightest mystery about the ending, there isn't.

Well, yes, there is one tiny surprise near the end, but it's a surprise only because the author manipulates the reader into believing that a certain fact is true. Honestly, Patterson must have taken the worst kind of novel-writing workshop ever. It seems as if he went through and checked off everything that would get someone to shed a tear. The careful contrivance shows through on every page and with every step of the plot. While the premise is good, the improbable behavior of the characters is just…well there are so many words but none are good. Matt is overdrawn to the point of nausea, Suzanne cheerfully writes details that she could not have been aware of, shares intimate details, and is cloyingly smothering, and the ending is just plain laughable. I haven't read anything this overwrought and predictable in ages…well, never. It seems that all you have to do in order to get a book out is have a few best sellers, grab up a weak plot, flat characters, forget about your setting and imagery and just drop names and places instead, preach your them by using cliché and sappy phrases, switch around your pov like crazy, use the same style and voice for all your perfectly flat characters and of course grab your readers by making one character cry, the other suffer and the other die.

All this story did was remind me that anyone can get published. All you have to do is kill off a mother or child…maybe abuse the kid some. In short, we all look at the news and say “Oh that’s tragic!” but when it comes to reading a book, you can’t just kill people off and call it a work of art, you have to know how to show the story, not just tell it.

A beautiful, touching story of true love, with its happy times and sad times. Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas portrays the importance of letting our loved ones know how we feel and making the most of every second that we have on this earth.

This was the worst book ever! I was so extremely disappointed. I hate those sappy sad cancer books, and this was just like it, only this time with childbirth and heart attacks! :P Terrible. Unless you like those kinds of stories...

I only finished it so I could find out why the guy dumped the girl, anything more is a spoiler alert. The secret was a long and tedious read through a woman's diary that she wrote to her baby. Gag.

The one redeeming quality was the life lesson of the "5 balls." Basically we all juggle 5 balls: work, friends, family, health, and integrity.

Work is a rubber ball that will always bounce back. Being in education for over 15 years and working since I was 18, I can agree with that. The ball of work does not always bounce straight, where you expect it to go, as high or as low as you want it, but it bounces back never the less.

The other 4 balls are made out of glass. They are much more delicate and precious as glass can scratch, crack, break or be shattered.

Hence have to leave your ego outside of your job.

I was very glad to delete this book off my Kindle. james PAtterson what were you thinking?

For me, this book was a complete and total "Ew."

This book was incredibly written and also incredibly heart wrenching.
I cried all the way through it.
Much different than any book Patterson has ever written.

"Neizmjerno sam voleo Suzan. Nema tih reči kojima bih ti preneo šta znači kad te zadesi sreća da nađeš ženu koju možeš toliko da voliš, a koja ti, što je čudo nad čudima, uzvraća ljubav istom merom. Ona je bila najvelikodušnija osoba koju sam sreo, blagonaklona i osećajna. Ono što mi se kod nje najviše dopadalo jeste što je umela da te sasluša. I duhovita je bila. I sada bi izvalila neku šalu. Siguran sam da bi. Možda to i čini. Smeškaš li se sada, Suzan? Voleo bih da je tako. Verujem da je tako."

This book came highly recommended. It was my first James Patterson novel, it disappointed.

I didn't have any interest until after half way through. Up until then, I felt no connections with the characters. Their was much of the beginning that I felt, could have been left out. To much wasted space in the beginning with no real connection to the story.

Yes the ending was predictable, but it's what led up to that ending and how it happened that was a good addition to the story. How can a book be good if you only become interested in the end? I was so disconnected to the characters that I didn't even tear up with the sad ending.

Would I recommend? No. I need books to grab me from the very beginning. If it takes to long to get me engaged, I have no interest in boring anyone else. I would give this 1 star, but I reserve that for books I couldn't finish. I was almost there with this one.

Prekrasan roman, tuzan i lijep istovremeno.

One of the best books I've ever read a book that had me crying buckets and ten years later I still think about how much I loved this. A book that will break your heart into pieces and then slowly mend it back together again. A book that will stay with you long after it's finished.