Book Report: The Notebook By Nicholas Sparks

The name of the book is The Notebook. It is written by Nicholas Sparks. It was published by Grand Central Publishing in 1996. The book consist of 239 pages.

I decided to read this book because I have seen the movie. So i was curious if there where any differences between the film and the book.

Structure

The book is a love novel. The narrator of the story is for most parts Noah Calhoun. The story is told in the past and the present combined. When Noah tells about the past, he reads from a diary. The title The Notebook refers to Noah’s diary. In which he has written down the entire love story of him and his wife Allie, and desperately tries to remain her memory when she is old en demented.

Time and place

The story takes place in North Carolina, America. The story is right after the second world war. The book tells a story of two lovers who, as teenagers, spend a summer in love and then no longer see each other for 14 years. When they meet again, their love for each other is as strong as during that one summer, after which they stay together for the rest of their lives. The book also describes their last years of life. So you could say that the story covers a life course.

Events

The old man Noah Culhoun lives with his wife Allie Nelson in a nursinghome. Allie is a Alzheimer patient and has severe dementia. Noah tries to make his wife remember how their life was together and who she was before she became ill. Every day he reads from his diary wich describes their love live. This diary starts with the story of Noah, an ordinary worker who returns to his parental home in New Bern after the Second World War. He restores the house, but lives on in old memories. After all, fourteen years ago he had discovered the love of his life. The rich Allie was on vacation and together they experienced a stormy relationship. But then they were separated from each other by her parents. After all these years, Allie reads an article in the newspaper about a man who has restored his dream house: Noah Calhoun, her first childhood love.

Meanwhile Allie got engaged with another man, but in her love life she misses something she did have with Noah. She starts doubting about her relationship and decides to visit Noah. She tells him that she is engaged, but realizes that her love for Noah has never disappeared. Their encounter evokes all the passion from their past, with all the consequences that entails…

Characters

Noah Calhoun

Through the whole book his age goes from 19 years till the end of his life (I don’t know his age at that point.) He is a very handsome man that’s why Allie fell for him very quickly. There is really only one thing that really gives meaning to his life and that is his love for Allie, which is and remains largely unreachable. Noah is not a fighter: he has common sense, but he makes cowardly decisions because he thinks they are right. He is smart, but has virtually nothing in his life that he really enjoys and does not feel the need to give it meaning.

Allie Nelson

Allie is 17 years old when she meets Noah. Allie is in many ways the opposite of Noah. She is energetic, cheerful, lively and expects a lot from life. She loves the refined things of life, but finds it hard to really listen to her heart, while Noah knows what his heart is saying but chooses not to do anything with it. Allie is extremely indecisive when it comes to making choices, wants to do the right thing and at the same time pursue her dreams and soon realizes that it doesn't always work that way.

How the book is written

The book is written so that you want to continue reading very quickly. Because you want to know what happens next. There are no pieces that I would have preferred to skip, the book is perfect as it is. It’s a very nice story. I would recommend the book to anyone

Indicate

The story was very good. I chose this book because I had seen the movie. And I was very curious about the book. I would recommend this book to my classmates because it’s a very moving and beautiful story.

My opinion

I really liked the book because it is a novel. And I really like romatic novels. It was a beautiful story with a bit of a sad ending. I became a bit emotional at the end, because it was a very sad but at the same time a beautiful moment. The story is about true love and love at first sight. And because of that I still believe that true love really exist. I really enjoyed the book.