Well, this book was on my Project 100 list and I believe I was one of the last remaining women in the US that hadn't read this novel. I'll preface all of this by saying that I'm not a huge romance reader, but having read and enjoyed Sparks' Three Weeks with my Brother, I was willing to give this a shot.
I'll not give away too much of the plot, but very basically it is about a young man of little means and a young woman of fantastic means who fall in love only to be separated by time and social circumstances.
What made this novel better than the typical love story is the framing of it, as a old man reading the story to an unknown woman. The story is touching and while predictable, still genuinely warm and fuzzy. I did enjoy it. It's a great quick read and especially good when you just want to read and not think too much. Sparks' writing is lovely, clean and concise and his characters are lively and real. While I enjoyed the book in general, I think that I enjoyed it more after reading Three Weeks because I knew how he wrote it and what was happening in his life at the time. Overall, it was worth the hype (and million dollar advance) that it received.
