Audiobook Review – The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction/Romance
Length: 6 hours and 3 minutes
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Release Date: May 20, 2004
ASIN: B0002AYZ0Y
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars
“At 31, Noah Calhoun, back in coastal North Carolina after World War II, is haunted by images of the girl he lost more than a decade earlier. At 29, socialite Allie Nelson is about to marry a wealthy lawyer, but she cannot stop thinking about the boy who long ago stole her heart. Thus begins the story of a love so enduring and deep it can turn tragedy into triumph, and may even have the power to create a miracle.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this as an audiobook from my library.
Thoughts: This was okay. It makes you think a lot about life, love and family. It’s also one of those books that is a huge tear jerker and will make you want to cry through most of it. I found it mostly just depressing (I think it’s supposed to be uplifting and thought-provoking??).
I enjoyed the first part of the story as we watched Noah and Allie meet, then re-meet and fall in love. I was disappointed at how quickly we turned away from these two characters and their history. I thought we were going to spend more time in the past watching our two main characters live their lives. Instead we spend about half of the book in a nursing home watching our main characters die.
Additionally, I found the writing to be a bit too dramatic and repetitive. There is a ton of talking about love and how it can conquer all (in various ways) and it started to feel very repetitive. Despite the book’s short length there were a lot of times where I just wanted the story to move along. The ending is also very ambiguous which left me feeling a bit empty. Really not sure why this book was so popular. There is some food for thought here, but it’s not new territory and the story is pretty short and disjointed.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay. It is somewhat thought-provoking and makes you think about love, life and family. However it was also very depressing, disjointed, and spent a lot of time rehashing how love could conquer all. I wasn’t a huge fan and don’t plan on picking up more Sparks’ novels.
