Review: The Notebook

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I saw the movie long before I read the book, so I had an idea about what it contained. I had to tape a few pages together to avoid risque content, but in all I love this book. I liked the ending of the movie much better than the book, it rounds it out better.

What really moves me about this book is that it shows romantic love from a man's point of view. For some reason when I was growing up, I never thought males had feelings. I just thought they were empty of feeling. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it was the whole "boys don't cry" thing so I thought they couldn't feel, or maybe that they grew out of feelings when they became a youth. Even through my first marriage I thought "men don't have feelings". I know that is not true now, my husband has deep feelings. I'm happy to see a book that discusses those kinds of deep feelings that men can have about the woman they love.

The second reason why this book moves me so much is personal. My mother is in the middle stages of Alzheimer's (or even possibly dementia) and does not know what is going on around her sometimes. That makes me so sad that she could be so scared and unsure about what is going on around her. It is sad that it is only a matter of time before she doesn't recognize anyone or remember that we love her. I'm heading down that path too, my symptoms are similar to hers at the same age and I can see that this could be my eventuality, too.

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