This book was published in 1996. I wasn’t even born at that time yet. The author was definitely not talking about notebook computers.

I’ve seen the movie a couple of times. The first time I saw it, it was recommended by a close friend. When I saw the genre, I assumed it would be another traditional boring love story, but I was wrong. The movie was realistic, and well put together. Noah was played by Ryan Gosling and Allie was played by Rachel Adams. I said I must read the book, and I did. I was only able to find a soft copy. Reading the novel itself was a little better for me. I prefer the book to the movie. The Notebook is my first read by Nicholas Spark. My second being ‘The Last Song’ (would make a review soon!). I’m in love with the style of writing used by the author. Who knew men could write so deep about romance and love?

The book begins with an elderly man(Noah), sitting by an ailing woman(Allie), reading her a story from a notebook.
The story he reads travels the reader back in time to when Noah and Allie met in the summer of 1932. The author makes it clear that both characters came from opposite background. Noah was basically a nobody. Allie was from a well-to-do family with political connection. Typically, Allie’s parents didn’t approve of a match with Noah.
As I read on, fourteen years after. Noah joined the army and Allie went to college and eventually was engaged to a handsome attorney from a famous family of whom her parents approved. She still feels there’s something missing in her relationship but she doesn’t know what it is. Noah himself has had failed relationships over the years. They both never forgot each other.
Just three weeks before her wedding, Allie sees a picture of Noah in a local newspaper about the restoration of his house.She is compelled to go see him before getting married. She tells her fiancé and family that she needs to head for New Bern alone.
She pulls up in front of his house one day, and the two slip back into their ‘usual’ relationship as though they’ve never been apart. Allie is convinced what she shares with Noah is something she’s never had with her fiancé.

Noah asks Allie why she didn’t reply to any of the letters he wrote her all those years. She tells him she never saw them. Her mother didn’t approve of their relationship, so she hid them. Allie’s mother comes to warn the Allie that her fiancé is coming to New Bern to find her since she has not answered his call. She brings all of Noah’s letters that she had withheld for fourteen years.

Allie must make a decision about which man she wants to share her life with. Keep in mind readers, this is a woman who all of her life has done things only if her parents approves of it. The story cuts back to the elderly man and his wife(we now discover she has Alzheimer’s)
I love this part of the book!
The ailing woman is the wife of the elderly man reading the book, but she does not recognize her husband. They have been married for fourth-nine years! The couple is an elderly Noah and Allie.

The book was the first attempt by the author which is a very good one.