I have to explain (confess?) a small something about myself before I give this review. I've always had a small aversion to and resistance toward Nicholas Sparks and all his literary and cinematic glory. I had always seen him as a little cheesy and a lot predictable, and much more of a guilty pleasure than a legitimate choice. This opinion was confirmed and encouraged in one of my college lit classes when we were asked on day one of class to list all the southern authors we could think of and one girl said "Nicholas Sparks" while barely keeping her laughter in. The rest of the class laughed along and the professor said something along the lines of "I suppose we can put him on our list although he's hardly an author." I think it was probably that moment that taught me that I was supposed to be embarrassed at the idea of liking one of his books. And yet, here I am, having just closed the last page of The Notebook and I genuinely enjoyed it. So take that, girl in that college lit class. I'm done being a Sparks snob.
My other small confession is that it's going to be really hard to review the book without at least thinking of the movie. Almost impossible, actually, since I've seen the movie about twenty times. But I'll try.
Noah and Allie met as teenagers when her family was in town for a summer. She came from southern royalty and he was from a more humble upbringing, but their love came fast and intense. When the summer ended and they had to part ways, circumstances and some devious interventions from her parents ended their relationship as well. After many years of silence they are reunited, except this time she's engaged to someone else.
This is a beautiful story of Noah and Allie's love. There is that little issue of Allie's engagement to nice guy Lon, but I think the weight of her decision is handled well and fairly realistically. Spark's writing is lovely, and the story flows well. His descriptions of scenes from their past are simple yet detailed enough to give the reader a complete picture of everything that took place. The love between the two is passionate (as is one slightly graphic scene detailing that love) and deeply rooted. (Small spoilers ahead but I'm working with the assumption that most people have seen the movie.) In the end, the descriptions of Noah's love for Allie even in the face of horrible mental disease are heartbreaking, a little terrifying, and oddly comforting. There's no doubt that this book is wonderful.
But...but I just can't help but compare it to the movie a little bit. And my honest opinion is that the movie did a better job fleshing out the characters than the book did. I really think that the Noah and Allie were characters that worked in my head because I had the images of Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in my head the whole time, and not because they worked as characters on their own. It was almost as if they would have been strangers to me without the foreknowledge of the movie. I think a huge part of this is because the book starts with Allie's return to Noah's house and moves forward from there, whereas in the movie this is one of the closing scenes. In the book, the couple's entire relationship is told as not-very-detailed flashbacks whereas in the movie the entire plot is that relationship. I knew those characters' personalities in the movie, but I think the only reason why I knew them in the book was because I was inserting scenes from the movie into my understanding of them. Maybe this isn't Spark's fault and I was setting myself up for this by watching the movie first...but maybe the character development just isn't as good in the book as it is in the movie. I honestly don't know, but either way I did like it a lot, and I did cry at all the right places. Mr. Sparks, you're officially on my radar for the future.
PS: I think it would be rude of me, considering my bashing of Sparks in the first paragraph, to not say that I genuinely love The Last Song. Not the movie, because the movie is absolutely unwatchable horrible, but the book is great. I love it. I don't know why that wasn't enough for me to turn from my snobbish ways...but I guess he's got me now.
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