So, I didn't love this book, even though every other girl on planet earth does. Here's the deal: it's an old guy at the end of his life, showing how undyingly committed and in love he is with his elderly wife, who is dying of Alzheimer's. Sweet, right? Except here is how he shows his love: every day, he reads her the story of their love. It involves hooking up as teenagers, then being apart without communication for years and years, yet yearning for one another while sleeping around with other people, then getting back together to fornicate like crazy and cheat on her fiance and break up her soon to be wedding. If that is not eternal and undying love, I don't know what is. There is no way you can go wrong picking a life partner if you are horny and running away from responsibility and commitment, as this book clearly shows. That is the only way to find a man who will love you and change your diapers for you when you get old.

Okay, so he wasn't changing her diapers, but you get the point. I try to go with the romance of the book, and it is romantic in the eldery love sort of way (hence the 3 stars, because I figure eventually they grew up), but I can't help but think the main characters are sleazy. The end. Throw tomatoes at me now.

Lijepa emotivna prica o pravoj ljubavi! <3
Preporuka za film koji je ovaj put puno bolji od same knjige! :-)

i feel like people who hate allie and noah’s relationship in the movie for being toxic need to read this because like… where art thou drama?

“I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.”

A beautiful, emotional, intense and passionate love story

The Reading Rush
- Read a book you meant to read last year
- Read and watch a book to movie adaptation

*3.5 / 5 stars

Is The Notebook sappy? n  Yes.n Cheesy? n  Yes.n And romantic? n  Also yesss.n

I would say that I like this book and do I like it as much as I like the movie? No, of course. In the book, I think it would be better if the author told more details about the summer Allie and Noah spent together because when I read about this in the book, I really don’t understand why they loved each other that much. OK, I might not understand love at all, I know but anyway, I think it needs more details. Apart from that, the ending of the book is kinda weird for me. I had decided to give this 4 stars before but the ending made me change my mind, so 3.5 stars for this.

P.S. Don’t misunderstand me. I like this book indeed. Though I didn’t tell what I love about it, it doesn’t mean I hate it!

If you can’t love me this deeply I don’t want it!

Update, this book used the word tea atleast seven times in a 230 page book. I am under the impression that Noah loves sweet tea way more than he loves Allie !! JK JK but it is a close second this book will always give me the feels but it did not make me cry the way the movie did which always throws me for a loop because NS can pull at everyone’s heartstrings !!

Happy reading everyone

I almost never like the movie better than the book. The film The Notebook is one of my guilty pleasure movies. I typically won't admit how much I like it, because I don't usually do the sappy, romantic chick-flick thing. But secretly, I kinda love it.

For a while, this book has been in my pile of books that I own, and that I want to read, but have never gotten around to it. Well, I finally read it last night. I read it in one go.

What. The fuck.

How did this thing become popular?

I normally will never compare a movie to a book like this, but goddammit, the things that were good about the movie serve here to accentuate the reasons the book is awful.

Book Noah loves Book Allie, and sees her as the feminine ideal: smart, beautiful, witty, talented (the book tells us that plenty of times, but doesn't do much to show it). They fall in love (again, we are told that, but it was a total LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT thing, god forbid we include some character development) She comes back into his life, and he rolls over for her like a submissive dog. Yes, come to my home and drink my beer and cheat on your fiance, and I won't ask any questions because YOU ARE MY TRUE LOVE AND I LOVE YOU FOREVER NO MATTER WHAT. Then after a night of passionate lovemaking (and a strangely understanding visit from the mother we are told is so staunchly classist and controlling), she says, "Oh yeah, that whole fiance thing...have to go, sorry." And Noah is all, "I LOVE YOU FOREVER, WHATEVER YOU DO IS OKAY WITH ME." REALLY? Have some balls, man. Yeah, he is sensitive and hardworking and thoughtful and romantic. And BORING.

Pretty much, the book removes all the passion that made the movie worth watching, and replaced it with quiet understanding and patient love. The passionate, iconic kissing-in-the-rain scene? Absent from the book. Hanging from the ferris wheel, lying in the street, jumping in the lake? Absent from the book. Allie's trip with her mother to the lumber yard, where she tells Allie about her own failed romance? Absent from the book. Noah's impassioned argument where he tells her what a pain in the ass she is, but he wants her anyway, and blah blah blah Don't take the easy way out? Absent. From the book. It's like climbing into bed with someone, expecting amazing sex, but just getting a weak back rub and some neck kisses instead. Sweet, but no fun at all. The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking, how did the movie get such great scenes out of this?

Oh, and at the end? Where, in the movie, Allie asks Noah if their love can take them away together? The scene that would have made Vlad the Impaler cry little girly tears? Instead, Allie remembers Noah when he comes to her room at night and kisses her. And the book ends with her undoing the buttons on his shirt. Because they are about to have freaky old people sex. Because of course that will be fun for an eighty year old man with crippling arthritis, recovering from a stroke. REALLY? Sappy romance through the whole thing, and then you GO AND CHEAPEN THE WHOLE SAPPY ENDING?

well, i was promised tears and, unfortunately, my eyes are as dry as the sahara.

i will say that i think the story itself has an unbelievable amount of potential - its the execution that leaves much to be desired. i just couldnt believe the connection between noah and allie and i think its because we dont see any of their history. sure, the reader gets the jist of it as noah is sitting on his porch and thinking about the past - but its all dry facts told to the reader, not first hand experience.

this novel takes place over a day and a half in the present, 14 years after noah and allie meet/separate. this should have started when noah and allie first met. i want to experience their summer together. i want to see what happens when allie leaves. i want to worry for noah as he goes off to war. and i want to know what they have been doing these past 14 years. everything is just so underdeveloped.

i havent seen the film, but i have seen the trailer, and that has more emotion than this entire book put together because it actually tells the story of noah and allie. which is what this book should have done.

↠ 3 stars

Los amores verdaderos son los que pasan las pruebas mas tremendas.

Esta es una verdadera historia de amor.

La película es hermosa, aunque no es 100% fiel al libro.

Favorite Quotes

I suppose [my life] has most resembled a blue chip stock: fairly stable, more ups than downs, and gradually trending upward over time. A good buy, a lucky buy, and I've learned that not everyone can say that about his life.

"A living poem" had always been the words that came to mind when he tried to describe her to others.

Our lives can't be measured by our final years, of this I am sure.

We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.

And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on god days, for falling in love.

It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.

And when her lips meet mine, I feel a strange tingling I have never felt before…and suddenly a miracle…and I discover a forgotten paradise, unchanged all this time, ageless like the stars. I feel the warmth of her body, and…I allow myself to slip away. I close my eyes and become a mighty ship in churning waters, strong and fearless, and she is my sails.

کلیشه و دیگر هیچ

The main reason I rated this book 4/5 is that I could relate with the main character pretty well. My love story is somehow alike to this one, up to some point, of course, and I have to admit that it brought some tears to my eyes.