Ask virtually any woman over the age of 14 what her favorite movie is, and she’ll likely say “The Notebook”. For some inexplicable reason, the story of Noah and Allie has become one of the most revered in our culture, a perfect example of what lasting love is supposed to look like. Women commiserate together about their tear-soaked copies of the book, or bond over how much they love the performances of Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in the movie. And with “The Notebook”, Nicholas Sparks struck gold. It became the equation he used for virtually every book he would write in the future. Attractive white couple meets, fallw in love, overcomes tragedy, only for the book to end with more tragedy — Sparks apparently loves his tearjerkers. The books are formulaic to the extreme (how else could he churn out so many, so quickly?), yet they’ve become synonymous with romance today. But what are the lessons that Sparks imparts to his readers? They’re not good, according to a column written by Gracy Olmstead that perfectly eviscerates the Sparks brand of romance.

If there’s a husband in the way of the Nicholas Sparks lovers, he’ll kick the bucket soon enough. No adultery necessary. If there’s a fiancé, the Nicholas Sparks Woman will explain the circumstances and be excused for cheating. I think that’s what bugged me most about “The Notebook”—while Sparks told Corsello that his books do not encourage adultery, he creates worlds in which adultery or other similar sins are not necessary, because everything just “works out” in the nick of time.

It’s a good thing, too, because each Sparks novel reinforces the idea that love is outside of our control—a torrential emotion that overwhelms us, that forces us into decisions or moments we cannot back away from or turn down. As Noah Calhoun puts it in “The Notebook,” “Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can’t control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That’s what it was like for me. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us.”

Sparks’s books create scenarios in which this pathos-driven, lust-filled “love” dominates the life trajectories of its protagonists, yet no one gets hurt in the end. This, writes Buzzfeed’s Anne Helen Peterson, is a potent fantasy for modern readers: “The Notebook and the rest of the Sparks genre are escapism,” she writes. “They’re melodramatic. But they’re also a coping mechanism, and an expression of frustration with a world that’s increasingly difficult for women—and men—to safely navigate.”

Sparks’ novels are a form of porn, she argues: just as porn replaces real intimacy, “propagating unrealistic sexual and physical ideals in the process,” many readers “use Sparks narratives to replace the lack of emotional intimacy and satisfaction in their own lives and, as a result, cultivate unrealistic ideals about what a relationship — and love — should resemble.”

… When “The Notebook” paints Noah and Allie’s summer romance as the happiest of their lives, it forgets to note that summers of our youth are often the happiest of our lives, and that teenage romance is the easiest of our lives. Such relationships and times are carefree, innocent, responsibility-free. It’s what comes after that makes us into adults. It is what comes after that makes us into loving, faithful, loyal lovers.

The experiences that are tragic, frustrating, annoying, comic, and crushing slowly teach us to be self-controlled, persevering, gentle, and kind. The process of loving someone through such circumstances teaches us to keep a marriage alive.

A very important misconception often plagues modern discourse about love: we’re told that chemistry, “the spark,” is love. But it’s not. It’s just attraction: a form of lust and longing that stirs in you when you meet someone who fits the conception you have of the man or woman of your dreams. Tall, dark, and handsome. Someone who loves poetry. Someone who actually listens to you. Someone who makes your heart flutter.

Sure, these things can be ingredients in a loving, lasting relationship. But they don’t make such relationships. Often enough, on their own, they can lead to horrible, painful things like affairs, adultery, and divorce.

This is the potent lie of “The Notebook”: that not only is love something you can’t control, but that chemistry is something you cannot deny. When teenage girls read a book or watch a movie that touts such claims, it sets them up for a world of hurt. It teaches them emotion should triumph over reason, that love is some wild and uncontrollable torrent of passion that cannot be tamed or understood.

The idea that “The Notebook” is some kind of epic love story is ludicrous to anyone who pays attention. The relationship between Noah and Allie is paper thin — yes, they shared a blissful summer together, but as Olmstead points out, the summers of our childhoods always take on that romantic, hazy glow. What actually happened was that they grew up, and Allie got engaged… and then cheated on her fiance with Noah after, oh, 24 hours of being reunited with him (while indignantly attacking her mother for the insinuation that she’s a “tramp”). But they were meant to be together!, people exclaim, as if that somehow makes infidelity and adultery acceptable. “They were meant to be together” is the motto of every adulterous couple, ever, so I guess cheating is OK now. Because, you know, if you “love” each other, then you’re given the go-ahead to overcome any obstacle put in your way, even if that “obstacle” is something like, I don’t know, the promise to be faithful to another person for the rest of your life.

Sparks is one of the worst peddlers of this kind of smut, though. We live in a world that has become completely wrapped up with the idea that love is just a “feeling”. Sparks, as pointed out above, perpetuates that idea. One of his protagonists will be in a relationship where they don’t feel the same way anymore, the butterflies are gone… and along comes Mr. or Mrs. Right, who listens. And there’s passion there, right? That’s what matters! The passion! The romance! We see it in countless divorces these days, too. People think that because there’s no more spark, no more butterflies, no more passion, that there’s no more love there. So they get a divorce and move on to their next relationship, thinking that this time they’ll find the real thing. Nevermind that the real problem is that true love isn’t about always having passion. Real love is much deeper and more important than always feeling happy and fulfilled; it’s an action, a choice… not a feeling.

Of course, Sparks is just a symptom. He’s just one of many people perpetuating this idea that love is basically the emotional equivalent of a drug that we all should be chasing, waiting for the next person that can get us high. The Sparks idea of love and romance is what we expect now, and should it therefore be any surprise that so many women are struggling to find a real, quality relationship? That marriages fail?

Maybe it’s time we stopped idolizing Sparks’ false romance, and start demanding the real thing.