The Notebook

The Notebook
By Nicholas Sparks
Fiction/Romance
Released January 5, 2000
$12.99 Print $7.99 Kindle http://www.amazon.com/

I hate to admit this, but I saw the movie first...and liked it better. Most of that is probably because of Ryan Gosling! Oh my;) Sorry, I digress. I am a purist when it comes to books versus movies. I think the book should always be read first and should always be better than the movie. Except for "Jurassic Park" because honestly, I could not have imagined all those dinosaurs on my own. And "Harry Potter" doesn't count. So in a league of it's own!
When the movie "The Notebook" came out I was on a Dan Brown/Michael Crichton kick. I had no idea who Nicholas Sparks was. I didn't care much for that type of literature.
When I saw the movie though and found out it was based on a book, I had to read it. Now, I count Nicholas Sparks as one of my favorite authors. Yes, I have read all of his books.
Nicholas Sparks tends to write with a proven recipe. Insert plot point here, climax here, conclusion here. He even tends to stick to the same geographical area. Who came blame him? Why mess with something that works so well. He also often writes , like Nora Roberts, from the male characters point of view. Refreshing change from the swooning heroines in many romance novels.
When reading Nicholas Sparks you will also find that if you lined up all of his books, you could pull out every other one and discover that he kills off his characters quite often. He tends to pick at the soft bruised spots of your heart. And when you read his books, you feel that emotion, as real as the words that describe them.
In "The Notebook" you meet Allie. A woman suffering from the early stage of Alzhemier's. Her disease is progressing quite rapidly. She is a resident in a nursing home where her husband also stays. The narrator travels between the present day Allie and the 1936 heyday of Allie. Interesting note-you don't quite know who the narrator is right away or even if the old people in the home are the young people from the past.You think it's Allie's husband but once you begin reading her story; is it Noah Calhoun the poor southern boy who was her summer romance? Or Lon, the wealthy southern lawyer that she met as a nurse after World War II? The whole story is "read" to you from a notebook that was created to remind Allie of her past in the hopes that it would help her remember for as long as possible. Another note here...you aren't quite sure who the author of the notebook is (until later in the story).
Definetly get a box of tissues for this book. And SPOILER ALERT...the book begins where the movie practically ends (1946).  So when you get to the "good stuff" you aren't as invested in the characters.
I think the main points of this book are first;  the devasting toll of Alzheimer's on a family and the person who struggles with it.Poignantly detailed by Sparks. Secondly, the lifelong love of two characters. Right out of a fairy tale.

Read It: Yes. It's become iconic in the world of literary romance.
But: No butts.
Bonus: The movie. Duh. http://www.newline.com/properties/notebookthe.html