Synchrogirl117's Book Review: The Last Song

Synchrogirl117 is one of our most devoted Sparkler writers, and she's currently in a class where she can read whatever she wants! She's blogging for us about her picks. —SparkNotes editors

I picked up The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks a few weeks ago because the movie, starring Miley Cyrus, is coming out soon. Since my friends will probably drag me to see it, I felt compelled to read the book beforehand.

The story revolves around 17-year-old Ronnie Miller, whose mother sends her and her adorable little brother to live with their father for the summer. Ronnie is NOT happy about it. But while at her father's beach house, she makes new friends, reconnects with her family, gives her talent a second chance, and has adventures of love and with turtles.

This book was not my favorite. The beginning was very cute and fun to read, and the end was sad, but it seemed a little fluffy to me. Many of the situations were clichéd and would never happen in real life, and the bad guy was almost too bad. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but it was almost boring because it was so predictable. I knew what would happen in the whole book by chapter two.

I haven't read any other novels by Nicholas Sparks, but my friends tell me The Last Song is fairly similar to the rest of his books. It reminded me of the Sarah Dessen books: cute and fun to read at first, but a little stale after you've gotten through two of them. But there are TURTLES in The Last Song, which makes reading it almost worthwhile.

I would give The Last Song a 4.893 out of 10. This is the type of book I might want to read on vacation. If you're emotional, be ready to cry. (The girl who read it after I finished burst into tears in the middle of class.)

One more thing: I forgot my book one day, so I picked up A Lifetime of Secrets, by Frank Warren. This book is a collection of postcards, pictures, and other objects that anonymous, everyday people write their secrets on and send to PostSecret. It was amazing—probably the most inspiring, scary, and thought-provoking book I have ever read. It was just so real. The whole time I was reading, I couldn't stop thinking that the people who sent in the secrets are real people, maybe even people I know. I also found several loose secrets stuck inside my copy. It was a fabulous idea, and Frank Warren must have put so much work and thought into sorting through so many thousands of secrets. I give it a 10. I finished it in a day, and I really think it was life-changing.

Have you read The Last Song? If so, what did you think?

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