The Notebook

I just finished reading The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. It's only the second book I've read authored by him. The first was Message In A Bottle. Both of them made me cry.
Go ahead, call me an incurable romantic, but even the most jaded cynic would soften up with one of Sparks' novels.

The book, if you haven't read it, is about love. It's not a run-of-the-mill thing, though. The story talks about a deeper, more intense, and definitely more lasting kind of love, between two beautiful people - Noah and Allie.
The first part of the story was about how Noah and Allie met for the second time (they'd first fallen in love when he was 17, but they'd had to part).
They discovered that they'd never stopped loving one another - but the clincher was that Allie was engaged to be married.

The second part of the story - the part where I cried at almost regular intervals, is written from an octagenarian Noah's point of view. He loves Allie more than ever, and struggles with her Alzheimer's. Everyday, he reads to her from a notebook in which Allie had chronicled their love story. Some days she remembers him, some days she doesn't.

The book was so beautiful. I cannot say that it is my favourite (since A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini occupies that distinction), but it certainly comes close.
I can't wait to read Nicholas' other books. No doubt they'll be as beautiful as this one, if not more.

In Message In A Bottle, the male protagonist was called Garrett, and he seemed quite similar to Noah. They were both the silent types, and very outdoorsy. They end up being perfect gentlemen, the kind women would die for. I wonder if Noah, Garett, and all the other male protagonists in his beautiful books are actually reflections of Nicholas himself. That's hard to believe, because I was beginning to think that the "perfect guy" did not exist. But most writers identify with their characters in a tiny way atleast, so these storybook guys must atleast be loosely based around Nicholas. *Sigh.* He dedicated The Notebook to his wife, Cathy. She must be really lucky! :)