The Notebook discussion

Jordan Brechtelsbauer
9/17/2017
English 3
8th Hour
IRP
Summary:
In this story, we meet a man named Noah Calhoun who is living his life trying day by day, trying to forget the ghost of his past. This ghost is a girl who he can’t seem to forget.
We also meet a woman who goes by the name, Allie Nelson. Like Noah, Allie also seems to not be able to forget her past with him. The only problem is that Allie is now engaged and unable to figure out her feelings.
This love story is a great example of the statement “true love always finds its way back”. Noah and Allie have found their way back into each other's presence. They then realize their love had never faded. Allie is faced with a tough decision- ignore the love she has for Noah and stay with her fiance, or face her feelings and hurt the others around her.
In this love story, we see the power of love and how it works in mysterious ways.
Response:
I enjoyed this book very much. I have seen the movie many times, and I definitely think the book is better. I loved how the author wrote in detail. The ways he described the characters and their thoughts made me think every time. Some of the things that he wrote were so beautiful. Whenever he described something, it always made me feel as if I was in the book and I was the one in the position. His descriptions were very clear and descriptive. It was very easy to picture it in your head. This definitely was a book that I would typically read. I read a lot of romance novels and this one definitely would fit into that category. I’ve actually never read one of Nicholas Sparks’s books before, but I have seen a few of the movies. I enjoy the movies a lot, so I figured I would also enjoy the books, which was a correct assumption. This book didn’t really remind me of any other book I’ve ever read. I have read many books, but I think Nicholas Sparks writes very different from other authors. In my opinion, this story got you to think. It made me think about what I would have done if I was in Allie’s position. This book definitely made me want to explore more Nicholas Sparks novels. It was very well-written and it had a lot of detail that a lot of other books seem to leave out. Overall, I enjoyed reading this a lot, and I could not find anything that I did not like about it.
Big Idea Word:
If I had to choose a word that would fit well with this book, I would choose the word “love”. I think this choice is very obvious. After all, this book is in the genre of romance. This book says a lot of things about love. The biggest part was that you can’t ignore love. This book teaches that if two people are meant to be together, they will find their way back to each other. Noah and Allie never stopped loving each other and eventually they found their way back and realized this. Not only was there love between Noah and Allie in the book, but there’s also signs showing how much Lon loved Allie, even if she didn’t feel the exact same way he did. “And he’d made up his mind then not to lose her. He would do anything it took to keep her. She was everything he’d always needed, and he’d never find another quite like her” (Sparks, 85). That shows that sometimes when you love someone, you’d do anything to keep that person, no matter the cost. Also, there can be different ways you love people. Allie loved Lon and Noah, but she felt differently about both of them. Noah made her feel different ways that Lon had ever made her feel, and that was something she couldn’t ignore. Another thing the book indicates about love is that it can’t be ignored. “There was something that kept a distance between him and any woman who started to get close, something he wasn’t sure he could change even if he tried (Sparks, 9). Noah couldn’t let Allie go even though he tried, and that shows that love does not go unnoticed. This book was pretty much all about love and there were many things to learn about love by reading this book, which is why I think the word “love” fits the book perfectly.