Author: Nicholas Sparks
Rating: 2/5 stars
Synopsis: Seventeen year-old
Veronica “Ronnie” Miller’s life was turned upside-down when her parents
divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North
Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her
parents, especially her father… until her mother decides it would be in
everyone’s best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him.
Ronnie’s father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a
quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that
will become the centerpiece of a local church. The tale that unfolds is
an unforgettable story about love in its myriad forms – first love, the
love between parents and children – that demonstrates, as only a
Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that deeply felt relationships
can break our hearts… and heal them.
My Thoughts:
I wanted to write this review before I watch the movie because I don’t want to get influenced by that experience when I write about the book. So here is what I think about The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks.
It was way
too sweet and sugary for my liking. Long walks by the beach, lots of pure,
first love-y conversations, lots of ‘I love you’s… there was too much syrup for
me between the lines of this book.
I don’t like when love becomes too vocal, because I believe one can express love better with action than with diction, and of course it’s necessary to say ‘I love you’ once in a while, but if you say it too much, the words lose their wonder. And I’m not only talking about relationships between a girl and a boy, a woman and a man. It is also true for family bonds.
I know there
was a special situation here between Ronnie and her dad, because tragedy was
striking, but after a quick escalation their relationship became
unrealistically intense – considering that they hadn’t talked to each other for
three years – and of course soon the big words flew around like colourful
balloons in a fun-fair. The problem is, if we pop them, the essence of the book disappears and
since I didn’t like the balloons, I’m left with nothing.
Ronnie, the
protagonist is an irritating teenager who tries to solve every problem by
shouting at someone. Sure, towards the end of the novel you can see that she’s
becoming more mature, a better person even… right until the point when Will
tells her his secret; then the mirage shatters, and she shouts some more. I was
excited for this book partly because the protagonist has my name. I’m not happy
with what I got.
The
characters in general were clichéd. We had the psychopathic bully, the good guy
with a guilty conscience, the know-it-all girl who learns some life lessons by
the end of the story. I didn’t get very attached to either of them, up until
the very end they didn’t acquire any depth.
I regret to say, there is nothing mind-blowing about the plot either. From the very beginning you have an inkling how the book will end, it is hard to miss, really. The whole plot is predictable as heck. One positive thing is that the last part is delivered pretty well at least. I cried, I confess. The last fifty pages or so earned one more star for the book in my eye, but before that I was simply bored.
I didn’t care
much about the budding romance, all they did was walk, they went fishing once
and guarded a turtle nest all summer long. I swear I cared more about the
turtles than what would happen to their love after the summer ends. Despite it
being first love for both of them, it didn’t burn that hot, or so it seemed to
me. When they were forced to separate, Will didn’t even try to contact Ronnie
for a long time, which seemed strange to me.
All in all, I
wouldn’t recommend this book unless you read other Sparks novels and loved
them. This was my first Sparks, but my last too, I think. Now I’ll go and check
out the movie, maybe this is one of those cases when you can get more out of
the movie than the book. At least I hope so.
