Book Reviews

Reviewed by John Cairns

What starts as a tale of a resentful teenager set for a summer of discontent in a place she dislikes turns into much more in The Last Song (2010, Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, New York, 465 pages). This novel that I imagined might weaken the credentials of author Nicholas Sparks instead bolsters his reputation as a reliable spinner of popular yarns.

A series of deflections turn the plot into a love story, then a family tragedy and back to a love story, always with underlying messages about the merits of nature, culture, honesty and religious faith. Confident after past successes, Sparks squeezes in a lot.

Young heroine Ronnie Miller, with a defiant purple streak in her hair, and tiny brother, Jonah, must leave New York City to spend a summer with their long-estranged father, Steve, in less-than-inviting Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. “That was banishment, and for most of the nine hours it had taken them to drive down, she'd felt like a prisoner being transferred to a rural penitentiary. She couldn't believe her mom was actually going to make her go through with this.”

Not that Ronnie clicks with her mother either. “ ‘Were you able to get any sleep at all?’ her mom asked.
‘Until you hit that pothole. Thanks for that, by the way. My head practically went through the glass.’
Her mom's gaze remained fixed on the road. ‘I'm glad to see your nap put you in a better mood.’
Ronnie snapped her gum. Her mom hated that, which was the main reason she'd done it pretty much nonstop as they'd driven down the I-95.”

For three years, Ronnie had refused to speak to her father. “Jonah shuffled his feet, something obviously on his mind. ‘Ronnie didn't read any of the letters you sent her, Dad. And she won't play the piano anymore, either.’
‘I know,’ Steve answered.
‘Mom says it's because she has PMS.’
Steve almost choked but composed himself quickly. ‘Do you even know that that means?’
Jonah pushed his glasses up. ‘I'm not a little kid anymore. It means pissed-at-men syndrome.’ ”

Yet Steve has more going for him than Ronnie imagines. So does North Carolina. “These days, none of it and all of it felt real, more real than anything she’d known: her love for Will, her growing bond with her father, the way her life had slowed down, so simply and completely.”

Anger in Ronnie's heart subsides once she meets Will Blakelee, a well-to-do beach-volleyball player who bashes into her when chasing an errant shot. In popular fiction, love always hits hurdles. For example, Will's mom ridicules his new pursuit. “ ‘I've been waiting for you to figure it out on your own, but obviously you're too emotionally involved to see the obvious. She's not good enough for you. She's low-class. Low! Class!’ ”

A menacing, fireball-tossing delinquent named Marcus takes an interest in Ronnie too. Worse, his jealous girlfriend, aptly named Blaze, impulsively frames Ronnie for shoplifting. There's even a sinister unsolved arson case that damaged a church and injured its pastor.

How can Ronnie juggle so many troubles? Evidently, she has reserves of strength and strength of character that far exceed all expectations, including her own. The same goes for many “troubled” teens, adding another aspect to the book's themes.

The title reflects Steve's failed career as a traveling concert-pianist and the unused musical talent that Ronnie inherited from him. “The more he thought about it, the more he'd come to realize that for him, music had always been a movement away from reality rather than a means of living in it more deeply.”

After more than a dozen books and 50-million-plus copies in print, Sparks thrives with well-told love stories. He uses those same skills again. “The strains of music were soft and distant, and when he looked up, he caught the brief flash of a shooting star passing overhead. When he turned to Ronnie, he knew by her expression that she'd seen it as well.
‘What did you wish for?’ she asked, her voice a whisper. But he couldn't answer. Instead, he raised her hand and slipped his other arm around her back. He stared at her, knowing with certainty that he was falling in love. He pulled her close and kissed her beneath a blanket of stars, wondering how on earth he'd been lucky enough to find her.”

Yet the most meaningful moment isn't about human bonding. “And then there was the sight of the tiny, prehistoric-looking turtles trying to escape the hole; clawing their way up and slipping back down, crawling over the tops of one another... until one finally got out, followed by a second, and then a third, all moving along the sandy trench toward the light....”

The most gut-wrenching scene isn't about romance either. “She watched her father try to stand straighter, arching his back, struggling to control the hacking. He brought both hands to his mouth and coughed one more time, and when at last he drew a ragged breath, it sounded almost as if he were breathing through water.
He gasped again, then lowered his hands. For what seemed like the longest few seconds of her life, Ronnie was frozen in place, suddenly more scared than she'd ever been. Her father's face was covered in blood.”

Sparks routinely appears on New York Times bestseller lists. His earlier titles include The Notebook, Dear John, Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember. Like Ronnie's father, he lives in North Carolina.

For most authors, any book with the content and potential impact of The Last Song would qualify as a near-masterpiece. For Sparks, it's one more in a series of them.

Approval rating: 79 per cent

For more information: www.nicholassparks.com