This is the book that people will always warn you about.. The book that if you haven't read or heard yet, people will guess that you lived your whole life under a rock... (I've heard of it and I've known it for like forever through the film, yet I had the opportunity to read it only now, so I'm an in-betweener! uhm, maybe I was kind'a living on the skirt of the rock, I've known and heard it for so long but 'tis only now that I've come to read it. Congrats to me!)
A Walk To Remember is the book that transcended generations and is still loved and still highly recommended by a lot of readers.
Join me in my Nicholas Sparks Read-A-Thon by using the hashtag NSReadAThon and linking your A Walk To Remember Book Review down below and if you have reviewed this before, feel free to link it too. Everyone is welcome to join anytime and you can read any books in between as long as we reach our goal to read all of Nicholas Sparks' novels before the year ends (My initial plan was before my school starts, but they're just too many). Please message/comment me if you are joining. :)
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BOOK & MOVIE REVIEW
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Title: A Walk To Remember
Author: Nicholas Sparks
Published by: Grand Central Publishing on Sept 1st 2004
Genre: Romance, Drama
Setting: Beaufort, North Carolina (USA)
Format: MM Paperback, 240 pages
My Copy Source: Borrowed from Daniela
Purchase: NBS [PH] | Fully Booked [PH] | B & N | Amazon
Rating: 4 Roses
Every April, when the wind blows from the sea and mingles with the scent of lilacs, Landon Carter remembers his last year at Beaufort High. It was 1958, and Landon had already dated a girl or two. He even swore that he had once been in love. Certainly the last person in town he thought he'd fall for was Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's Baptist minister.
A quiet girl who always carried a Bible with her schoolbooks, Jamie seemed content living in a world apart from the other teens. She took care of her widowed father, rescued hurt animals, and helped out at the local orphanage. No boy had ever asked her out. Landon would never have dreamed of it.
Then a twist of fate made Jamie his partner for the homecoming dance, and Landon Carter's life would never be the same. Being with Jamie would show him the depths of the human heart and lead him to a decision so stunning it would send him irrevocably on the road to manhood...
The book is entirely different from the movie that I've watched several times when I was younger (I remembered crying buckets and I remembered being envious of their love story). I fell in love with the movie first and then I recently opened my heart to the novel where the movie was adapted. I was actually deciding on whether I would use inspired or adapted because the book and the movie have an entirely different story but the same in some ways. The movie was the expanded version of the book and it was like they only got the idea of the book itself and fashioned an entirely different story as to what the book actually told. Right now, you might think that in the present, that kind of step would be frowned upon by many book lovers out there, but I can assure you that any book lover would agree with the way they altered the book to further have an in depth story on screen and let me just say, Bravo! It's not always that a movie adaptation was better than the book and when that happens, it's just fairly remarkable. *slow clap*
The book is a very short and light read that you can finish in just one sitting, maybe 3-5 hours at least. It's a different take on romance, it's not the good girl falling for the bad boy that we've all seen numerous times on some romance stories. It's the other way around, it's the bad boy falling for the good girl. Not that he's an extreme bad boy in the book, but still, I think you see the point.
The book was told by Landon when he looked back on the day he found his true love. It was great to see the story from his perspective because it gave us the chance to see how he really felt. He was not an extreme bad boy but he doesn't hang out with the "goodies", he hangs out with the jocks even though he wasn't a jock himself. Landon, in the book, was the guy determined to get into a good college that's why he found himself the student body president and the lead role in the play where Jamie also starred in.
I guess watching the film made me a bit disappointed about the book in certain ways because the book was really short and there are scenes in the movie that was really remarkable so let me just enumerate them.
- Landon being the extreme bad boy in the movie to the point that someone nearly died because of him and his friends.
- The BUCKET LIST! Oh my, it was the sweetest thing ever and it wasn't in the book. Being on two places at the same time, getting a tattoo, and building a telescope? Wow, it was the sweetest thing ever!
- The songs! Yep, that made it better! ;D
- Shane West and Mandy Moore, yep, can't argue with that.
The book was good in its own way, it still captured the emotion of losing someone you love. It showed love in its purest form and even if they are young, it showed the power of real love and how it can transform you. This book has shown its readers how the magic of love and faith changes our perspective of life and even in the smallest way possible makes a miracle even when we haven't seen it yet.
Both the movie and the book made their way to our hearts in their own way and both are highly recommended! But please, do read it first before watching the movie so as not to get a wee bit disappointed because I can't tell you how much the movie is deeper than the book but also in many ways, the book also has its own story to tell.
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A Walk To Remember Book Reviews
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INSTAGRAM BOOK PHOTOGRAPHY
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I haven't watched the movie because there are a lot of Nicholas Sparks' books that I've already read but watched some of the movies and I'm a lil bit disappointed on the twist of events. Nevertheless, each has its own potentials and the best to offer.
ReplyDeleteHere's a book review of "A Walk To Remember": http://augustinra.tumblr.com/post/104638562087/a-walk-to-remember-by-nicholas-sparks#notes
For other book reviews including some of the books of Nicholas Sparks *winks*: http://augustinra.tumblr.com/tagged/books
You should watch the movie, Tin! I love both the bool and the movie but the movie gave a different light to Jamie and Landon's story. I guess I've never seen one beautiful book to movie adaptation such as this. Watch it and tell me what you think!
DeleteThank you for linking, me gonna go check out your reviews :)