DubaiReader

Another Nicholas Sparks tear-jerker.

This felt like two completely different novels - one narrating the teenage meeting of Noah and Allie, and how they were separated by time and space until they met again fourteen years later. The other, the part that really touched me, was the present day story of the narrator and his elderly wife who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and rarely even recognised him. They are both living in an old people's home (if that's a politically correct term?) and he visits her every day, waiting for a glimmer of the person he fell in love with. Even as I write this my eyes fill, so I was very grateful that the plane I was flying in had the lights out while I was listening to this as an audiobook.

The love story between Noah and Allie was pretty predictable. Noah was a bit of a loaner who enjoyed poetry, playing his guitar, and living in the country doing up a house he had fallen for many years before. He'd fought in the war and wasn't really looking for love. He hadn't forgotten his first love, but it had become little more than a dream. Allie was engaged to an up-and-coming lawyer but it was apparent that it was more a marriage of convenience, mainly for their parents.

Others have said how good the film version of this book is and I could imagine that it would make an excellent film. Though I'd have to watch it in the dark.

Apparently the scenes in the present day were based on the lives of Nicholas Sparks's parents so it was emotion from the heart.

I always know Mr Sparks is going to make me cry, the question is whether the back-story is satisfying. In this case, maybe not, but lovers of Chick-Lit will probably disagree with me.