Tuesday, June 20, 2006

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

After reading the action-packed, technical Da Vinci Code, I decided that I needed some brain candy to ease into my summer reading. Since I have already read The Wedding, and watched the movie numerous times, I decided to read The Notebook.

If you are looking for an easy, romance novel, this is the book for you. It is a very sweet story of two lovers separated by circumstances such as war, parents, and the human body. If you have already seen the movie, don't read this expecting the movie (like I did). There are enough similarities to ruin the picture in your head, but there are planty of differences to keep you on your toes.

"In 1932, two North Carolina teenagers from opposite sides of the tracks fall in love. Spending one idyllic summer together in the small town of New Bern, Noah Calhoun and Allie Nelson do not meet again for 14 years. Noah has returned from WWII to restore the house of his dreams, having inherited a large sum of money. Allie, programmed by family and the 'caste system of the South' to marry an ambitious, prosperous man, has become engaged to powerful attorney Lon Hammond. When she reads a newspaper story about Noah's restoration project, she shows up on his porch step, re-entering his life for two days. Will Allie leave Lon for Noah? The book's slim dimensions and cliche-ridden prose will make comparisons to The Bridges of Madison County inevitable. What renders Sparks's sentimental story somewhat distinctive are two chapters, which take place in a nursing home in the '90s, that frame the central story. The first sets the stage for the reading of the eponymous notebook, while the later one takes the characters into the land beyond happily ever after, a future rarely examined in books of this nature. Early on, Noah claims that theirs may be either a tragedy or a love story, depending on the perspective. Ultimately, the judgment is up to readers, be they cynics or romantics. For the latter, this will be a weeper." Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Read a few pages on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446605239/sr=8-2/qid=1150817746/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-5804579-5127935?%5Fencoding=UTF8

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