Another chance at love .... again

Can we all just get over high school? Seriously, Nicholas Sparks is not helping us forget all the crazy adolescent emotions we had what we just did not know any better. Every single book that he comes out with speaks like some kind of worship to the whole lost love, first love, and the love you never get over. Sparks brings us his newest book called The Best of Me which does not alter much from his tried-and-true formula of love come back to me. This time we read about high school students named Amanda and Dawson who are head over heels in the spring of 1984 in North Carolina. Like in most Sparks’ stories the characters are from two opposite worlds and must fight with society to be together. Both lovers are separated after graduation because of a series of unhappy incidents.

So, just like The Notebook we see that 25 years go by and Amanda and Dawson have a chance to right the wrong. In a moment similar to the film Cinema Paradiso the death of Tuck, the only one who supported their young romance, brings both of them back to their hometown. Tuck left behind a series of instructions that supposedly are meant to put the two older sweethearts on a path of self-discovery in healing as they face their most painful memories. Oh brother. Trust me, high school sucks. Unless you were popular you probably did not enjoy it. Between the cliques and social pressure of teenage angst combined with those crazy hormonal fluctuations, who liked high school? Maybe Matthew Morrison who was popular back in the day but he is an outlier. The likes of many other stars would never want to repeat grades 9 to 12 ever again even if it meant getting another chance at youth.

There are some darker more serious elements in the book. Dawson is an ex-con with a hard luck life. Amanda is married to a wealthy man and plays the rich society wife whose only job is raising her kids. When they are back in each others' lives it’s a recipe for disaster. Dawson runs into a murderous cousin when he heads home to scatter tuck’s ashes and Amanda’s family hate Dawson more than ever. Tuck is clearly broken but Tuck’s attorney convinces him to perform the old man’s last request. It’s clear that as adults the two former flames are dealing with the same set of circumstances that tore them apart. Sometimes books like this remind us to leave the past behind. Dawson striving to recreate a memory is not only foolish but unrealistic. With the violence that follows their love its cliché to give these characters the ending that Sparks did.