Book Review: Endless Love in The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

The Notebook is the first publishing book of Nicholas Sparks in 1996. The notebook is a fiction book which tells about contemporary love story set in pre and post-world war II. According to Nicholas Sparks official sites, The Notebook was only the third novel in recent history to spend over a year as a hardcover best-seller. Moreover, in June 25, 2004, The Notebook has been adapted to film which is directed by Nick Cassavetes. The notebook also got several awards such as MTV movie awards, Satellite awards, Teen Choice Award, and BMI film&TV awards.

This book began in a nursing home with Duke reading to an older woman, whose memory was slipping from her more and more everyday because of Alzheimer disease. Then, this story began with Allie, a 17 years old girl who was spending her summer time with Noah. However, they have to separate because of Allie's parents don't allow her to get a close relationship with Noah. During Allie waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and get engaged to a handsome young soldier named, Lon. Before Lon and Allie got married, Allie met with Noah. It makes Allie had to choose between them and he chose Noah, her first love.

The use of proper language was an important thing in making a great novel. Even it was Sparks’s first experiences in publishing novel he showed that he was able to write a great work. His way in describing the situation, characters feeling or thought was great because we can be easy to imagine the situation. Indeed, this novel does not only present an easy way in describing the situation, but also several great values that can be used in our life and relationship. 

The first value that we can get from this novel is the meaning of love. Love is not merely about passion, sex, or another thing but love is about sacrifice, struggle, and faithfulness. It was shown in the main male character, Noah who still able to love his lover even they have been separated for 14 years. It absolutely wasn’t an easy thing for a man. In fact, some people have affair, eventhough they had been married.

Nowadays, we often saw many couple got divorce. Implicitly, this novel wanted to give another value to the readers about marriage. This novel told that Noah and Allie were able to keep the integrity of their household until 30 years. Moreover, Noah can live with Allie in nursing house and helped her to heal her disease. This is shown that actually love wasn’t a thing that can be disappeared because of time but because of the people who indirectly try to disappear that love.

The last value which was shown in this novel is about another sense of happiness. Allie had a kind, handsome and rich fiancee but she still chose an ordinary man as Noah. It shows that happiness actually was simple. We don’t need to get every perfect thing to make us get happiness we just need to be happy to make a perfect life.

This novel is one of the great novels of Nicholas Sparks. Perhaps, for some people it is a romantic love or melancholy story. However, as long as we can take a several value of this novel, it can be useful for us to make a great relationship with our partner. The use of easy words helps the readers to understand more about the character feeling and thought. Because those reasons, I confidently suggest you to read this novel. Finally, I can guarantee you beside an entertain reading, you can take an advantage from this love story too. 

Composed by : Yuliana