I’ll fess up to begin with: I don’t particularly like Nicolas Sparks. Books like The Notebook seem too contrived to me, and to lack any real feeling. However, I am living on a Spanish mountain and it’s been raining so badly that most of the roads are cut off, so I’ll pretty much read anything! And to be fair, it wasn’t all bad.

John is a soldier, who falls in love with a devout southern belle. They plan to spend the rest of their lives together while he goes overseas to soldier on, but just as he’s ready to get out of the army 9/11 rolls around and he feels he has to stay in the army to serve his country.

I guess what intrigued me is that the story hinges on 9/11. That reference made me feel like I, too, was part of history, like people who lived through the second world war, also a topic of many a book. Other than that, this is not a very interesting tale. John himself is an oddly sensitive guy, for a hardened soldier, and we get to hear a lot about his motives, so though I didn’t really like him, I did get, sort of, why he did the things he did. Savannah, his love interest, on the other hand is one big cliche: she’s very, very nice. Builds shelters for the homeless, goes to church, loves and honors her parents, wants to teach special needs kids. I felt like slapping her. But that’s just me. All in all, not that bad a way to spend a Sunday afternoon in front of the fire.

I just saw that there’s a movie as well. Wonder if they kept the ending? Maybe ditched the brother? Curious!

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