The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

2 Stars

“You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.”

Having read this back in April 2015, this is an odd time to actually review the book. It's been over a year, you might say and you'd be right but it popped up in my feed and I saw I gave it 4 stars, I sighed and said 'oh honey'. Now I give this 2 stars because now, being a more experienced reader. I don't like it nearly as much. I also had and still have a habit of rating a book highly because I cried. I did cry, I actually sobbed because I thought it was so damn sad. It just really got me in that way, I remember waking up the night I finished it and actually crying because I remembered how sad it was.

It was a quick read, I read it in one sitting. I remember I got it as an Easter present because I was going through my Nicholas Sparks phase and I must admit I kind of still am but I find now, also being a more experienced Nicholas Sparks reader, it doesn't really compare to his other books. I didn't really like how fast it was. It was very quick paced. I remember things being kind of vague and it was kind of a random book. I just thought it kind of came out of nowhere and had nothing to do with anything but it was just there. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not.

I didn't really like Ally or Noah for that matter. I thought they were kind of flat and didn't have much shazam. Maybe had they been just a bit more interesting or three dimensional my opinion would be different. I just think they lacked anything special, they weren't set apart from any other characters or anything. It was kind of like when you're chewing gum and it loses it flavour but you keep chewing it because why not?

Although, I won't lie, if I were in the mood for a sad lovey dovey read then I would absolutely reread this. Would I rate it highly? Compared to his others, no. Did I enjoy it? I mean, I did, I'm kind of easy to please. There is currently a war going on about if I should give it two or three stars because I did enjoy it and liked it but this is a review and the actual quality of the plot and characters wasn't that great so I think I'll have to leave it at two stars.