The Last Song

The Last Song is the latest book by Nicholas Sparks. From the inside cover flap.~

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 Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, particularly her father…until her mother decides it would be in everyone’s best interest if she and her younger brother spent the summer with him in North Carolina.

Ronnie’s father, a former concert pianist, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will be the centerpiece of a local church. Resentful and rebellious, Ronnie rejects all of his attempts to reach out to her and threatens to return to New York before the summer’s end. But soon Ronnie meets Will, the town’s local heartthrob, and the last person she thought she’d ever be attracted to. As Ronnie slowly lets her guard down, she finds herself falling deeply in love, opening herself up to the greatest happiness-and pain-that she has ever known.

An unforgettable story of love in all its myriad forms-first love, love between parents and children-THE LAST SONG demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts…and heal them.

The Last Song was a good story and I enjoyed it. However, since I knew the book had already been made into a movie, I kept trying to imagine how the book would play out on screen. I enjoyed reading about first love and even the elements of mystery about the fire that had occurred at the local church. I will say that Ronnie was really hard to like at the beginning of the book. She was so horrible to both of her parents, I almost felt like the book moved too slowly at first. Only after she met Will did we see Ronnie as she really could be. With The Last Song, Sparks had me both laughing out loud at times, and crying at others. I did connect with this book, and look forward to seeing the movie in January. Sparks wrote the screenplay for Miley Cyrus to play Ronnie, and I’ll be interested to see how she does.

I won’t say The Last Song is my favorite Nicholas Sparks book written (favorites are still The Notebook and A Walk to Remember), but I’m glad I read it.