The Last Song by Nicolas Sparks

Introduction: I decided to take it light for a couple of days because I know I will be busy with work. So I grabbed a book by Nicholas Sparks knowing that its going to be an easy read. I dont mean it any other way simply that Sparks' books had always been easy to follow type - predictable, true... but always heart-warming.

Overview: Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church.
The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels—first love, love between parents and children — that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them.

My opinion: This book is exactly what I expected. From the first few pages, I already know how this is going to end.I dont actually like Ronnie's character at first (maybe that's because I am a daddy's girl). I hated how she treats her father, although understandably so... that's because she blames him for ruining their family. But as she evolved in the story and get to know her better, I started liking her. And although this book is exactly how I predicted it to be... and I didn't mean it in a bad way... it still filled me with loads of emotions in the end (knowing hoe melodramatic I can be :p). I know this story will be all about finding true love, seeking forgiveness, desire for second chances to make things right... and realization to never give up hope. I read so fast during the first few chapters only to be unable to finish it at once. I had to stop many times towards the end of the novel to wipe my tears. I was touched by this book, not mainly by Ronnie and Will's love story though... but by Ronnie and Steve's story of a great love shared between father and daughter. It left me with a feeling of gratitude to life - for all the things I have, for the things I lost... and for granting me a family others can only wish for.

My rating:

Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch

Introduction: Again, another book that asks us "what if you had a chance to do it all again? If you could leave your seemingly routined and monotonous life as a full time wife and mom to have a second chance with the one you tagged to be the love of your life, would you do it?" But to tell you honestly, I dont regret reading this book. Its cozy yet thought provoking, perfect for light reading.

Overview: Jillian has a life straight out of the women’s magazines she obsessively reads. She’s got the modern-print rugs of Metropolitan Home, the elegant meals from Gourmet, and the clutter-free closets out of Real Simple. With her investment-banker husband behind the wheel and her cherubic eighteen-month-old in the backseat, hers could be the family in the magazines’ Range Rover ads.
Yet somehow all of the how-to magazine stories in the world can’t seem to fix her faltering marriage or stop her from asking "What if?"
Then one morning Jillian wakes up seven years in the past. She’s back in her Manhattan apartment. She’s back in her fast-paced job. And she’s still with Jackson, the ex-boyfriend, and star of her what-if fantasies.
Armed with twenty-twenty hindsight, she’s free to choose all over again. She can reconnect to the mother who abandoned her, she can use ad campaigns from her future to wow her clients, and she can fix the fights that doomed her relationship with Jackson.
Or can she?


My opinion: I always love reading books that tells about going back to the past to try to correct a mistake (or a decision) only to realize that our protagonists will never change anything at all anyway. But I particularly love the way this book is written, in a sense that when Jillian goes back to the past, she is really convince that it is a chance for her to change her fate and eventually end up not with the husband she chose seven years ago but the boyfriend she love even seven years after. She became unhappy with her current life because she believed that she will be happier with her ex boyfriend whose passionate and free-spirited. She got tired of the routines of being a house wife and a full time mother. This is a good read, and I'm sure you'll enjoy the ride back in time with Jillian - with her second chances and realizations.

I guess, this book tells us that regardless of the choices we made... there will always be moments when we will ask ourselves "what if?". So... it may not be history that needs changing after all :)

My rating: