REVIEW: The Best of Me - By Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks does it yet again. The Best of Me was clearly a challenge for him as he revealed in his acknowledgments at the beginning of the book. I kept that in mind as I was reading the book. I was trying to find the difficult challenges he may have faced.
It became more clear as you continue reading at the vast amount of knowledge one needs to create a book becomes almost an insurmountable obstacle.

Sparks created various different characters each with their own individual personalities and purposes. He created numerous plot lines that were flawlessly intertwined to create one "Spark"tacular book. (cue the cheesy eye rolls.)

As Sparks customary, the setting was in his native North Carolina. Dawson and Amanda the main players in The Best of Me have an almost Notebook like romance. Amanda, a southern debutante who never liked to follow the rules fell in love with the wrong man from the wrong side of town. But their romance was that one of a kind, deep down to the soul kind of true love that you only get one chance at. And the chance was ruined when the pressure from Amanda's parents and the time to leave for college left them leaving each other behind.

What Dawson faced in his life next was a life that most people thought he was destined for, jail, after he accidentally hit and killed the only doctor in the small town. To which Dawson never fully recovered, harboring the guilt to his death. Dawson had a rough life growing up, his mom left and his dad was an abusive alcoholic. He would run away to live in Tuck's garage, an old lonely man who lost his wife. Tuck became a God like presence in both Amanda and Dawson's life that tried to change fate from the grave however his efforts only falling short.

Dawson was truly not like his family and vowed to make a change. But Dawson kept to himself and went through traumatic experience on the oil rig he worked on. After his near death experiences, he started to see a man,with a blue track suit, showing up at these moments that forever changed people's lives and eventually stopping Dawson's life forever. The man was the doctor he killed back when he was younger, pushing him to save his sons life while also ending Dawson's.

As you can tell, the plot has so many twists and turns that every other page was a new persons story evolving.

Dawson and Amanda were re- united over the death of Tuck over 20 years later. They tried to rekindled the old flames but Amanda's marital guilt forced her to think of her family and not her own desires to get back to the man she loved. Where Dawson was trying to keep hidden from his family who was out to get revenge that ultimately put the nail in his coffin.

Without trying to revel the complete story, I wanted to give the parts I felt would make anyone want to gt up and read the book. It was pretty clear that it is kind of hard to really write about this book because there was just SO much going on and so many plots to unravel that it would probably be easier to draw a map.
In any case, I wanted to give you the gift of this review because this is a highly recommended book, like Sparks books are. Some things that I left out were the true ending that leaves you with an almost sad satisfaction. This turned out bad but they could have been much worse and if it had to be this way than there was no better way for it to end.

In the end, I loved another one of the Sparks emotional roller coasters that leaves a definite remembrance.