- The Good: Beloved romance in which the male lead spends every day proving his love
- The Bad: Contrived; saccharine; no conflict
- The Literary: A novel of cliches?
Recently home from the Second World War, Noah Calhoun spends his days restoring an old plantation farmhouse on the North Carolina coast and thinking about the girl he fell in love with one summer fourteen years ago. Allie, on the other hand, has tried to forget Noah, especially since she’s engaged to be married. But when she sees the mention of him in a newspaper, she realizes she must go see him.
The Notebook is wildly successful, especially the film adaptation. The most successful part of the story is the ending, or rather, the frame-story in the movie. Uncharacteristically for these reviews, I’m giving a major spoiler: In her later years, Allie is diagnosed with dementia, and both Noah and Allie move into an elder-care facility. Allie doesn’t remember Noah, or their kids, or much of her life, but every day, Noah reads her their love story. Some days she doesn’t respond, but some days she breaks free of her disease and all the memories come back to her, and they have another day of true love together.
Unfortunately, the rest of the novel doesn’t work. Sure, it’s overly sentimental and saccharine, which is to be expected, but that’s all. I had hopes that the post-war world would add a sense of time and place and texture, but it’s quickly forgotten. In fact, most of the story takes place in the country at the old farmhouse, with very few other characters, so all you get is meaningful looks and lots of yearning.
There’s no conflict, except that Allie can’t decide whether or not to leave her fiancé—though it’s obvious she will. Allie’s mother did hold back the letters that Noah sent her after their summer together, so perhaps her mother will try to keep them apart? Nope, her character essentially disappears after she tells Allie that she was only trying to protect her and it’s her decision.
Not only is the plot predictable and unimaginative, but the prose is so achingly simple and lifeless.
The film is able to rectify one major fault of the novel by actually showing Noah and Allie’s summer together as teenagers. In the novel, Noah pines after that time together, but as a reader, you never get to experience why and how they fell in love. We know they’re from different worlds, so that should be even more reason to show why they’re perfect for each other.
What takes it down the final star-rating is that Allie is such a simple love interest for a male. She can’t make up her mind, just like a woman. She’s desperate to do the right thing and not hurt anyone’s feelings, though she does cheat on her fiancé. She wears a tight white dress, then it rains, at which point Noah feels a quiver in his loins. Worst of all, Allie tells Noah she’s never had sex with anyone else, including her fiancé, apart from when she lost her virginity to him as teenagers.
Not recommended even for romance fans. There’s much better stories out there.