Customer Reviews

The Last Song

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When I began reading The Last Song, my first thought was this is the perfect book to read to finish out the summer. I thought it would be light, but an enjoyable read. To my delight, it became so much more as I read more of Ronnie's story.

Ronnie and her brother Jonah are sent to North Carolina to spend the summer with their estranged father. Their father left his prestigious position at Julliard to pursue his dream of being a concert pianist. His time away put a strain on his family and eventually ended his marriage. He now calls Wrightville Beach, NC home.

Ronnie never forgave her father for ruining their family. In fact, she hasn't spoken to him in three years. She's livid that her mother is forcing her to do this. As soon as she sets foot in her father's house, she's determined to plan her return back to New York. As soon as she enters her father's house, she puts distance between them by spending her first night away from his home. It's on this night that she first meets Will followed by Blaze. It's this night that will change her summer.

The Last Song is told in four differing points of view: Ronnie, Steve, Will and Marcus. Through each perspective, Mr. Sparks reveals more of the story and at times flashing back to the past to provide more history. Each character has something to add to the events of that summer and reading it in his or her own voice adds to the realness of the story.

Early on I had a hint of how the novel would end. As I realized my assumption was right, it didn't prepare me for the emotions I felt as I continued to read. The Last Song isn't only about love. It's also about learning how to forgive yourself for your past mistakes so you can move forward. This is evident as Ronnie struggles to forgive herself for allowing her anger and hurt to prevent her from having a relationship with her father. During this summer, Ronnie realizes despite her behavior, her father's love remained unconditional.

Steve, Ronnie's and Jonah's father, spends time quietly reading his Bible. It's during these devotionals, that Steve has forgiven himself and draws closer to God. Mr. Sparks did a fantastic job of using Steve's devotions to illustrate that through God, new beginnings are possible, despite your past, if you have faith, believe and put your trust in God. He continues to illustrate new beginnings by restoring broken relationships between a parent and child, the destroying and reconstruction of a church and learning to love and respect yourself.

The Last Song is an emotionally charged novel, one that I highly recommend. I suggest you read with tissues nearby. It will grabbed the reader and won't let go until the very last page.

Veronica "Ronnie" Miller is being forced to spend a summer in Wilmington, North Carolina with the father that walked out on her family. She detests him, and wants absolutly nothing to do with him. It's been 3 years since she has last spoken to him, and she doesn't plan on doing so now. It's out of her hands though, because her mother has made the decision to send both Ronnie and her younger brother Jonah to visit with him, and now Ronnie has to deal with it.

Ronnie usually spends her time hanging out at the clubs of New York City, and when she's forced to a town where the only fun you can have is fishing and surfing, she's bummed. She doesn't fit in with the people around here, and knows this will be the worst summer of her life. On the brighter side, she's met Blaze, a misfit just like her, but will their friendship last throughout a summer filled with drama, violence, and grief?

It's been a long time since I've picked up one of Nicholas Sparks' novels, and I'm kicking myself for it. This novel has to be one of the best that I have read this entire year. It was not only filled with a heart wrenching story of father and daughter, but a love story that will have you sighing with pleasure. I honestly had a hard time putting this book down, and am actually quite sad that I even had to finish it! This was one of those books that I wish would just go on forever, so that I could continue to read the story of Ronnie.

I cried multiple times during this novel, for reasons that you will understand when you pick up this novel. Ronnie's character is driven by her emotions, and you can feel each and every one of those emotions emanating from the pages. I personally felt for her each and every step of the way.

This was the third novel I have read by Nicholas Sparks, and I'm more than positive that it will not be the last. In the past I have read The Notebook, and Message in a Bottle, and both of those stories were just as passionate and full of emotion as The Last Song. I have a special place in both my heart and my bookshelf for Sparks' work, and am delighted that I was given a chance to review this novel. Thank you Miriam Parker from Hatchette Books for allowing me to review this book, it has been an absolute pleasure.

Thankfully we can also look forward to a film production of The Last Song, coming January 2010. Miley Cyrus will be playing the character of Veronica Miller, and I'm interested in seeing how well she portrays her. I'm more than thrilled to be reading about this on Sparks' website, and can't wait to see the novel played out on film.

Here's a few facts you probably didn't know about this novel :

1. Miley Cyrus chose the name Ronnie for the main character.
2. Nicholas Sparks wrote the screenplay before he wrote the novel.
3. The Last Song is the longest novel that Sparks' has ever written.
4. The Last Song is both a love story and a coming of age novel.

If you haven't read any of Sparks' work, I highly recommend it. Make sure you have a steady supply of tissues on hand as well.

I shudder to think what writing this review is going to do to my Amazon recommendations. But I enjoyed this book so much I just had to review it regardless. Admitedly I haven't read much of Nicholas Sparks' stuff in recent years but with a recent move to the same town that he calls home I felt obligated as a good neighbor to run out and buy his book when it came it out. Okay not really - I am really a sucker for good romance and I loved "The Notebook" and "A Walk to Remember" among a few of his other earlier works and with all the local hubub around his latest release I figured I would check his latest book out.

I must say that when I first started reading this book I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. I'm 40 years old now and happily married with three great kids - so a summer romance between teenagers just wasn't up my alley. As I read it though, "The Last Song" slowly began to grab a hold of me. What Sparks has a knack for is creating absolutely great and likable characters. You really get to see how an immature girl grows into a beautiful young woman in this story. I just loved the character development and it is what truly had me enamored throughout the whole story. True - it is a summer romance - but as you get into the book you quickly learn that there is much more to it. There is also a spiritual element to this story that is really touching. Though not preachy - the story is convicting - if that makes any sense. This is definately one of my favorites by Nicholas Sparks and one I'll likely read again.

I know that teenagers will love this book - but I really think this book is just as much for the young at heart as well. "The Last Song" greatly exceeded my expectations.

This was a good story, yet it reminded me a lot of the notebook (more the movie version than the book at least). The story begins with a rebellious teenager being sent to live with her dad. Her summer on the beach is when she finds her identity and matures into an adult.
I think the best character in this book is her father. He is the kind of dad that we all want, and the kind of person we all respect. His trials of divorce, moving back to where he grew up, and trying to create a relationship with his kids is the the best part of this book.
Nicholas Sparks has always had the tear jerker aspect for his writing and this book is no exception.

When you feel you are ordinary individual living life in a world that demands extraordinary how do you reconcile yourself to that. Is aspiring to be just enough acceptable or will it cause you more angst that happiness. But what if our individual ordinary is extraordinary due in fact to being who you are. It is a lovely ride we are taken on if we just stop talking and start listening to the quiet whisper of the one being that is always going to guide us.

Steve Miller is on this journey of inner reflection and has experienced life in the spotlight as a concert pianist and while great he was surrounded by gifted making wonderful not enough in the venue. When it became too much he left New York, his wife and children and moved back to the town he came from, the last place he ever thought he would return. Life there had not ideal having been raised by emotionally stagnant parents but the faith of one pastor inspired him as a child and now as an adult to be and achieve more. Steve aspires to have one wonderful summer with his eighteen year old daughter Veronica (Ronnie) and his ten year old son Jonah. They have been separated for three years after the divorce and Steve knows time is running out on his ability to be with them. He needs to put his life in order, clean out the closets and let his children know how much he loves them and the future he sees for them. The problem is his daughter would rather be anywhere but with her father and while an equally gifted pianist she refuses out of spite to play. She is angry about the divorce, bitter about the way life is treating her and finding out that being in trouble is apparently getting her more attention that behaving. An eighteen year old has enough to deal with and now she has to spend the summer in nowhereville with her father; perfection is not the name of this adventure.

But Ronnie finds herself gravitating to trouble at first but as the summer progresses new purpose shows itself and clarifies that life is not all black and white there is some gray. While her father and brother bond while building a stained glass window to replace the one destroyed in the church fire, Ronnie finds that there are other ways to rebuild her broken relationship with her father. But the most unexpected surprise for her is finding love with someone who is not dark and depressed but fun and interesting and likes her just as she is, complicated and moody.

But with every silver lining there is a dark cloud lurking behind it and when the rain starts pouring on Ronnie the horror that happens is one she never saw coming. Will she be strong enough to deal with the grief she must face and the heartbreak that is inevitable - not knowing how amazing you are is the biggest surprise for all of us. When you are faced with adversity and owning up to your mistakes a person shows their true character when they rise to the occasion, take ownership of the situation and move past it.

With any Nicholas Sparks book you are taken on an emotional journey that leaves you feeling both elated, drained and out another box of tissue. In this book Mr. Sparks finds a way to explore not only adult emotions but those of a child on the brink of adulthood who face fears and mistakes and shows the growth process. I believe the greatest gift a writer can bestow upon a reader is a sadness that a book has just ended because you feel like a friend is being parted with. Enjoy this latest entry for you two will be asking "would I be able to do what Ronnie accomplished" and hopefully the answer is yes.

The Reading Reviewer is Mary Gramlich [...]

The Last Song, by Nicholas Sparks, was a great book full of comedy, drama, grief, and most importantly, love. The main character, Ronnie, starts off as a "bad girl" complete with the attitude, clothes and the permanent record. Her brother, Jonah, is a sweet little boy who loves annoying his sister. The two of them are forced to spend the summer with their dad who walked out on them when they were younger, and Ronnie is not too happy about it. Her summer gets off to a shaky start but it all changes when she meets Will Blakelee, the local heartthrob with a big secret. Over the course of the summer, Ronnie matures as life throws out obstacles that she was not expecting, but she realized she needed to be strong for her brother.

I was a little bit hesitant to read this book because I had heard many rumors about it being written for Miley Cyrus, a person of whom I am not a big fan. I eventually decided to give it a shot, and I am very happy in my decision because Sparks really got his point across with his brilliant writing. He showed the value of a father-daughter relationship and that a father's love for his children is infinite and indestructible. He also showed the power of friendship and that a true friend is always there when you need one. An example is how Ronnie was there for Blaze after everything she had done. It really says a lot about a person's character when they are able to go out of their way, forget the past and help out someone in need.

I agree that this book is most likely going to be enjoyed by the teenage population because of their ability to relate to the situations portrayed in the plot. However, I believe adults who understand the teenage mind will enjoy the book just as much. Many people also have said that this book was too predictable, which is true, but most romance novels are like this. Boy likes girl, boy asks girl out, they fall in love, they fight, they break up, they make up and they live happily ever after. This book followed the trend but I think Sparks did a good job of throwing in twists and turns that one would not expect within the plot. This is what really made the book go from good to excellent.

Nicholas Sparks is an outstanding writer. I cannot stop reading his books over and over again. In this book, I cried and laughed multiple times for reasons you will see as the plot progresses. I thoroughly enjoyed every page. I highly recommend this book to everyone and any other books written by Nicholas Sparks. You will not be disappointed.

If you are a Nicholas Sparks fan, you won't be disappointed. If you are a Nicholas Sparks fan, you will come to expect repetition and character similarities so again, you won't be disappointed. I think this book is far better than his last few. I liked this book because the writing and story lines were a kin to A Walk to Remember and The Notebook. This book will either strike a chord with you or you find it to be inane and unrealistic. With that said, read this book knowing it's fiction and enjoy it. Get into the characters and you will cry and fall in love with them.

I have read most of Nicholas Sparks' novels and am usually drawn into the book and the characters and I usually can't put it down, which means that I usually finish the book in a weekend. I am very disappointed with this one. I'm not sure what it is about the book, maybe it's because the story was first developed as a screenplay and then adapted into a book. I read the book over the course of 4 weeks. It was not a page turner for me. I found the book very predictable. As the characters developed and I got toward the middle of the book, I had the end already figured out for the most part. Once I got to the end, there were no tears, there was no surprise. The details of the ending may not have been exactly the way I had it figured, but I knew the basics. The foreshadowing throughout the book was not subtle at all to me. Maybe I need to move on to more complex writing. I am a big fan of Mr. Sparks' writing, but this one disappoints. I hope the next one doesn't disappoint like this.

(SPOILERS AHEAD) I was really looking forward to this book, hoping that Sparks would recreate some of the magic that his readers found in novels like "The Notebook" or "A Walk to Remember". For me, that magic wasn't there and I have found myself quite disappointed in his last few books. "The Last Song" is his longest novel and yet I found things happening too quickly in the book. Like Ronnie falling in love with Will, it happened so fast, too fast to find myself invested in their relationship. I found this story to be utterly predictable. From the very beggining I knew Steve was going to die and of course Ronnie would get closer to him and end up sorry for the way she treated him for the past 3 years. I also knew from the get go that Steve did not cheat on Kim, that she in fact cheated on him with the guy she was going to marry. Of course you knew that Ronnie would play the piano again and finish her dads song, just look at the title. And what about creepy Marcus? For a little while there you thought he would try and do something to Ronnie (like rape her or really go after her) but then after Will punches him out he just goes away and eventually ends up in jail for the fires. That just seemed really out of character for him to just run off with his tail between his legs. It was sad at the end when Steve died, but to me, all of the emotion was at the end of the book and the connection between the reader and the characters before that was lacking. For me there were no surprises in this story, I found myself just getting through it instead of looking forward to reading the next page. I hear that Nicholas Sparks wrote the screenplay before he wrote the novel. I won't be rushing to the theater to see this, especially with Miley Cyrus playing Ronnie Miller. Apparently Sparks let Cyrus chose the name "Ronnie" for the main character. Hanging out with Cyrus is not improving his writing. This book is a mediocre summer read when you have 2 hours to kill on the beach.

This novel is definitely geared toward the younger generation, more than his other novels. I think the fact that he wrote the screen play before the novel kind of takes away from the literature aspect of the novel. Also he seems to strain himself to create a character that the jr. high and high school reader would relate to.On the other hand it is light and the perfect vacation novel to read on the beach, but don't expect a major twist like his other novels have because it is extremely predictable.