This book proves two things. 1) Not all sappy, badly written love stories are to be found on the romance aisle. 2) Whatever V.S. Naipaul may think, a man can write like a teenage girl posting to Fan Fiction Net. Sparks actually says of his heroine Allie that she has "eyes like ocean waves" and she and Noah have the "perfect love." I have actually read worse written bestsellers, but I can't think of one so empty, so routine in its use of romantic cliches. I can't help but feel that anyone moved by this book is filling out the blanks with their own experiences or dreams, because nothing in the writing itself feels fresh or authentic. It's framed by a chapter of Noah speaking in first person present, which I'm beginning to think of as the hack's way of encasing prose in literary gauze. The bulk of the tale is in third person from both Noah and Allie's point of view after they meet again after more than a decade apart in North Carolina's coastal country in 1946. The best thing I can say about the book is given the spare style, simple vocabulary and short length, you can breeze past this in a few hours, so not much of your life will be wasted in consuming it. Be sure to floss and brush afterwards.
