The Notebook is a story about an old man
who is reading a journal to a woman who has Alzheimer’s disease. The stories
within are from the days when they were young and where their life together has
taken them: The woman is his wife. Nicholas Sparks has written over 18 stories,
each with a tragic end. Sparks likes to call his novels “love stories, not
romance novels”, but many others like to disagree. The Notebook was published in 1996 and is Sparks’ first published
book and third written novel. His most recent publish is The Best of Me (2011) and his new book The Longest Ride is to be released in September of 2013. The Notebook was on the Paperback
Bestseller list for 72 weeks in 2004.
The
story begins during the present time in the 1990s, but
goes back in time to the 1930s - 1950s. It walks through the days when Noah and
Allie reunited after the war and how they never truly stopped loving each
other. With his writing style, Sparks likes to speak in first and third person
and he usually focuses on one viewpoint which would be Noah’s character. To
spot this switch in view, Noah says,” My life? It isn’t easy to explain. It has
not been the rip-roaring spectacular I fancied it to be, but neither have I
burrowed around with the gophers” ( 1 ). But this point of view changes when
Noah starts reading the journal to Allie. “He handed her the paper, and after
an uninterested glance, something in the picture caught her eye and she took a
closer look” (31). This adds a sense of being a part of the story and you feel
as if the journal is being read to you.
The book
itself was fairly ok, but it’s hard to give good judgment to a book that has
been made into a movie and the movie contains more of a background of Noah and
Allie then the book does. The characters were a perfect combination since Noah
was more country and lower middle class, while Allie was a city girl who was high
class. But having those qualities didn’t stop them from seeing the person who
they truly are. The purpose that Sparks had written this story was to give a
wonderful love story that almost anyone can relate to or someone who wants that
kind of relationship. The strengths within this book would have to be the
character development and how Noah and Allie never seemed to forget about the
summer they spent together that lead to their reunion 14 years later.
Weaknesses in the book would have to be how Sparks just jumped into where Noah
and Allie were about to see each other 14 years later since their last summer
together, and then it talks about what happened that lead to their separation.
It was confusing when it went back and forth and it was just a mess in the
beginning.
The
rating that I would give The Notebook
would have to be an 80% because I felt
that Sparks could have added the information when Noah and Allie had first met,
then go 14 years later in the story and continue on from there. It was a good
book and I would read it again, but it’s not one of my most favorites and would
be more of an occasional read. Something that I did get out of the story is
that you should never stop loving someone, no matter what obstacles may lay ahead
in the near future.
