Review: THE LAST SONG by Nicholas Sparks

Rating: 4/5 stars

This was my first time reading a Nicholas Sparks book, and I mostly enjoyed the experience.

I didn’t love Sparks’s writing style, as I found it to be more on the “telling” side than the “showing” side at times. There were big sections of prose where he explained that time had passed and these events had occurred and now something new was happening. Moments like that led me to feel like the overall story was a bit slow-paced, but it wasn’t overly dragging so it didn’t bother me too much.

The best part of Sparks’s writing was his plot. He weaved details together throughout the novel that created a beautiful story in the end. And I absolutely loved the character arcs he created. Each character, Ronnie especially, went through such deep changes and progressions over the course of the book, and I loved being able to watch these characters grow as the months passed. Each person was realistic and flawed. The character development is this novel’s greatest strength.

I think this was a good first novel to get introduced to Nicholas Sparks. I do plan on reading more of his works eventually because I think I will really like many of his other books. I would definitely recommend The Last Song, though, if you’re looking for an emotional contemporary novel that centers around family with a side of romance.

Review: TEN THINGS WE DID (AND PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE) by Sarah Mlynowski

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

I only picked this book up because I wanted something cute and fluffy to read while on vacation at the beach, and that’s what I got. (This cover is awful though.)

Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn’t Have) is about April and Vi, two teenagers who end up living alone for a year, and all the shenanigans they experience while being parent-free. They pretty much did whatever you can imagine: they hosted parties and invited boys over and drank lots of booze and bought a hot tub. I do wonder how realistic this story was because I wouldn’t have done half this stuff as a teenager. But I guess everyone is different. . . .

I did not agree with all the teenage sex that happened. I kind of wish the girls had been more responsible and set a better example for younger readers. But at least the ending of the story had a good message and moral to it, and I feel like April and Vi learned from their mistakes.

Overall this isn’t a book I would normally choose to read, and I won’t reread it, but it was a good time while it lasted and there were lots of humorous moments in it.