When I first found this book, I had thought that it was the novel that the movie was based on. Instead, I discovered that Catherine Hardwicke had a young creative writer friend of hers pen the screenplay into a manuscript for a novel. What I have discovered when you do this is that there is a serious lack of character development. I loved the idea of the story, and I definitely ate this book up, but... from the beginning, I was confused by the characters. When Peter arrives to the town, it is a sudden and immediate love that Valerie feels for her childhood friend, but the detailing given for the beginning of their relationship is only the bare bones background story. They were young when Peter left, but the moment he reappears in the town, they are suddenly madly in love again. Even Henry's supposed love for her is briefly glanced over before suddenly he is willing to sacrifice everything to have her...
I couldn't go to bed after working a night shift because I found the story so seductive, but I just really wished that more of the characters and background had been developed. In the beginning, I hadn't even realized that Valerie was a young girl and her sister too for a few pages. This book had great potential.