Best-selling author, Nicholas Sparks, creates another heart-warming and tear-jerking work with his latest novel, “The Last Song.” If this is your taste in books, you’ll love this book.The book centers around seventeen year old Veronica “Ronnie” Miller, who arrives at her father’s home in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, with complete resentment, feeling punished for her misdeeds.
She hasn’t seen her father, Steve, in over three years after her parents’ divorce, and she has no desire to see him now.
With the insistence of her mother, Kim, Ronnie and her younger brother are to spend the entire summer with their father. In Ronnie’s opinion, this will be the worst summer of her life, but she’s about to discover an experience of a lifetime.
On her first night in Wrightsville Beach, Ronnie finds herself bored and annoyed by the pop running down her shirt after a young man, named Will, chasing a volleyball runs into her.
This chance run-in leads her to two sets of people. A young girl called Blaze introduces herself and befriends her, while Will cannot seem to get Ronnie out of his mind.
Trouble soon follows as Blaze’s boyfriend, Marcus, takes interest in Ronnie while she spends days arguing with her dad. It comes to a peak when Ronnie is arrested for shoplifting.
Ronnie protests that she is innocent, and when her father believes her, she begins to form a bridge to forgiveness and to rebuild their relationship.
Meanwhile, the discovery of a nest of endangered turtles brings her closer to Will. As the summer progresses, Ronnie discovers that love can heal any wound, and she becomes closer to her father and Will.
By the summer’s end, at the hatching of the turtle eggs, Ronnie can’t imagine anything being more perfect until she discovers a terrifying secret of her father: he is dying.
The book follows their regrets and forgiveness as they discover their love for each other and the forgiveness and love of God. Ronnie watches her father finish the stained-glass window he had begun months ago for the local church and insures that he is there to see it unveiled.
Meanwhile, she helps finish the last song her father was composing. Although she swore she would never play the piano again, she works the keys another time for her father, playing his last song.
“The Last Song” is written beautifully and is touching to the reader. Although the book has its sad moments, it is balanced with laughs and love surrounding every page.
I left reading the book with an important message: never take a moment for granted. Ronnie learns this lesson well throughout the book.
Each moment is precious because there is no guarantee that life will last as we expect; we cannot make up lost time and all the regrets in the world cannot erase poor use of time.
Along with love and forgiveness, Ronnie discovers that this is what leads us home to discover the important people and things in our lives.