“His voice, even now, follows me everywhere on this longest of rides, this thing called life.” ― Nicholas Sparks, The Longest Ride

It has been 4 years since the release of the book. It's been sitting on the Kindle reader for a long time. It took one power outage for me to start reading the book. Once I started, I could not put it down. 

In all honesty, I'm not into sappy romance novels. Believe it or not, this is the first book I've read of Nicholas Sparks. I know, shame. I only watched the film "A Walk to Remember" and I knew its from a book of his.

I have not seen the movie version although it stars the very good-looking Scott Eastwood. As a Nicholas Sparks novel virgin, it did not fail expectations. The story telling has that slow pace feel to it as if you are also living in the country side like the characters.

The telling of the depth of love between Ira and Ruth's story is well done. I felt the longing, the loneliness of the one left behind. Although the story of Ira and Ruth was told in parallel to Sophia and Luke's love story in present time, it did not give away how each of them would end up. It tells us that love knows no time, that humans go through the same things and they too have to deal with relationships. How one reacts affects their future.

Sophia has a lot going for her, being so young, still a College student, a future ahead of her. But, would you choose love over your dreams? Would you give up the only thing you know in order to be with the one you love?

Read the synopsis here. I rated it 4 stars in Goodreads.