3.5 stars (:
So beautiful :') ..
I have seen the movie many years ago, but I still enjoyed reading this very much❤..
My favourite part here is the part where Landon starts to change..
My only problem was that I felt their love but I couldnt feel their sorrow..
Am I making sense?
Eventhough I really liked this book, I have to say, I had expected a little more when I first started it :( ..

A very emotional story that will rip your heart.
I was so engrossed in the book where I was not aware until the story end.
A very touching romance.

Nicholas Sparks, what have you done to me?? I know this book was written in 1999 and somehow I am just now reading it. Have the tissues ready!!!! Oh boy. How can I sleep after finishing this book right now???? A fabulous book by a fabulous author!!!!

Being that all his books are written in NC and I live in NC, I decided it was time I jump on the NS bandwagon and read ALL his books!!!!!!!! I see he has written over 20 books and I’ve only read 8 of them. Only 12 to go?? His latest book “The Wish” is another fantastic book!!!!

This was the first Nicholas Sparks book that I ever read and for that reason alone it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Sparks is a master at making you fall in love with his leading male characters, at breaking your heart and leaving you wanting more.

Of course I decided to start reading a Nicholas Sparks book on Valentine’s Day evening to feel all the emotions (isn’t love the most powerful and healing thing in the world?!

I fall in love with this book more and more each time I read it :) This is my favorite book and I'm glad I made it a tradition to reread it every year :)

Read for the first time: 2002? 2003?
Read for the second time: 2009?
Read for the third time: December 9, 2013
Read for the fourth time: December 3, 2014
Read for the fifth time: November 19, 2015
Read for the sixth time: December 4, 2016
Read for the seventh time: December 23, 2017
Read for the eighth time: December 28, 2018
Read for the ninth time: December 25, 2019
Read for the tenth time: December 25, 2020
Read for the eleventh time: December 25, 2021
Read for the twelfth time: December 25, 2022
Read for the thirteenth time: December 25, 2023
Read for the fourteenth time: December 27, 2024

unpopular opinion but i liked the movie better.

“You have to promise you won't fall in love with me.”

You are heading towards an unprecedented calamity. You have a vague premonition of the emotional wreckage you'll suffer in no time at all. Yet you go against your sense of foreboding and end up having an irreparably broken heart at the end.

This recapitulates my bittersweet experience reading A Walk to Remember.

Nicholas Sparks used to be too mainstream and overrated an author for my taste. I decided to read this novel on a whim after watching the movie twice and being devastatingly impacted by Jamie's agony.

Landon is a popular, rich guy who makes a habit of discreetly picking on Jamie, the priest's daughter who does not know how to match her clothes, does not wear any cosmetics and spends time helping wounded animals, hanging around with her lonely father, praying for her community and donating money to the orphanage. Only when Landon is left with no choice but to ask Jamie to prom, do they start slowly getting dangerously close. They embark on the most beautiful, short journey which is about to end before it even started when Jamie announces her sickness to Landon.

In contrast with the movie, the novel is narrated by Landon. Getting inside Landon's head is the most practical narrative technique given his obliviousness to Jamie's dying, which holds readers' interest. In that way the mystery called Jamie is gradually unfolded before our eyes and when she lets the cat out of the bag all her quirkiness and peculiarities are decoded.

Landon is a character who matures a lot throughout the novel. I admit that his consenting to others' patronizing treatment of Jamie, his not wanting to be seen with her and his having a sudden outburst when the reasons for his befriending her are elucidated aggravated me. (His telling her that he is forced to spend time with her and sees her as a burden gave me an uncontrollable, unrestrainable urge to throw something hard at him.) Nevertheless, his emotional heartache which led him to change and scarred him for life compensated for the hideousness of his prejudices against Jamie at the beginning of the story. (Landon's knocking on his father's door and pleading with him to save Jamie, taking into account the fact that years had elapsed without them talking, was one of the most powerful scenes in the movie which was not emphasized in the novel.)

Jamie was an unconventionally beautiful heroine who had a heavy cross to bear. However, she insisted on looking on the bright side because of her faith, the only thing she had left. (Her decay near the end when her sickness was exacerbated and was not even able to move without painkillers was a punch to the gut.)

I cannot choose between the book and the movie. Both were tearjerkers despite the slight differences between them.

As regards the novel, A Walk to Remember is a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching page-turner I am not likely to ever forget.

“It wasn't that long, and it certainly wasn't the kind of kiss you see in movies these days, but it was wonderful in its own way, and all I can remember about the moment is that when our lips touched, I knew the memory would last forever.”

Čitam i znam šta će biti sa njom, nije faktor iznenađenja, i pored toga, rasplakah se.

I love this book so much. I think about Landon and Jamie all the time.

"Promise me, that you won't fall in love with me" says Jamie Sullivan to Landon Carter at the beginning of the novel. Nicholas Sparks might as well be telling me that because I picked this book based on my friend Patrick who has been insisting that this is the best Sparks. You see this is my 6th Sparks. I stopped after reading Safe Haven (2 stars) because I got tired of his Hallmark-kind of storytelling. So, I decided to give Sparks another try with a big doubt whether I would like this. This is the reason why it took me more than a month to finish this book. I started it and after few pages, I stopped. Promised that I would not like it. Too cheesy for my taste. Then started all over again then stopped again. Where was I? I forgot the story already. Then for the last 3 days, as I wanted to please my friend Patrick, I read without stopping and I really liked it.

It's an easy read and the characters, though caricaturish, are sweet and lovable. I mean, the world is full of treachery and duplicitous people but here are Sparks' characters that are their total opposites. This book is totally an escapist work but I love it. It changes the panorama of how we view the world say from dusky and smuggy to sunny, clear with pink-tinted gloss. It's nice to escape to reality and this book is a nice way to do it.

Reading Sparks is like eating at McDonald's. Of course I read more cerebral and serious books than this. Those are the healthy stuff or the steaks or those hard-to-pronounce French cuisine or those burned Meditterean veggies or those real raw treats in a Japanese resto. Despite having all those choices for good books, I still pick, once-in-a-while, a Sparks. We know what to expect and we can't deny that we like it. Just like going to McDonald's. We always see it our our way to work and we know that it is not healthy. But still pass by to have a quick fix for our hunger and we cannot deny that we like it.

Update: I watched the movie to find out how it compares and because everyone is saying the movie is SOOO much better, but no. I thought the film was shallow and unrealistic at best and completely erases the overall feel and themes of the source material. Even as just a film, it was terribly done in my opinion. So my recommendation? Watch the movie before reading the book OR just read the book.

*Before someone comes at me: No, I don't believe the book is always better than the movie, but this is one case I believe that it is. But that's just my taste so be chill.

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This was my introduction to Nicholas Sparks since I have been wanting to explore the romance genre more and he seems to be one of the biggest names out there.

I was going to rate this 4 stars for a cliché plot and a Mary Sue love interest BUT HECK, this book literally made me sob I think 5 times??? This was just so pure and beautiful and everything I want in a romance. (I'm not usually for the steamy stuff.) This book left me broken and I'm sure to come back for a reread and another breaking.