Connie Lee reviews: A Walk to Remember

A Walk to Remember is a realistic fiction written by Nicholas Sparks. In this book, he presents an eye-watering high school love story. Everyone who has been through high school knows about the little groups and cliques that form, and there are always those “left outs” who did not really do anything to be disliked but just aren’t that popular with everyone. One of our main characters in this story is one of these “left outs”. Jamie Sullivan is a kind girl but she just doesn’t mix that well with the rest. She was the last person Landon would ever have thought of falling in love with, but sometimes life just throws the most unexpected twists at people.
First, meet Landon Carter, a seventeen year old that lives in a small town in North California. Landon is a very believable character; he’s just like any other average high school boy living down the block who “didn’t excel in the classroom,” or as he put it, “excel at much of anything” (Sparks 48). Landon was born into a wealthy family but his father was often out of town due to work, leaving him in his mother’s care. “Now, she was a nice lady, sweet and gentle, the kind of mother most people dream about. But she wasn’t, nor could she ever be, a manly influence in my (Landon’s) life, and that fact, coupled with my growing disillusionment of my father, made me become something of a rebel” (Sparks 29). Of course, Landon never did anything too serious, but he did “sneak out late and soap up car windows now and then or eat boiled peanuts in the graveyard behind the church” (Sparks 29).
Now meet the girl, Jamie Sullivan, the nicest person you will ever get to know. In fact, she is so nice that it’s almost unbelievable. Jamie is the daughter of the town’s Baptist minister, Hegbert Sullivan, and she always carries her bible around and dresses “as though she were on her way to interview for a job at the library” (Sparks 39). Although Jamie is a nice girl she doesn’t seem to mix well with the rest of the kids her age; after all, carrying a big bible everywhere is not the most normal thing for a high school girl even if you’re the minister’s daughter. She wasn’t ugly or anything, but neither was she the most attractive girl on the block, “most of the time she looked sort of… plain, and that’s when you noticed her at all” (Sparks 38). Despite not being the most popular girl around, she still went about and did all her kind deeds because “Jamie believed it was important to help others, and helping others is exactly that she did” (Sparks 40): visiting orphanages, fund-raising for one thing or another, to even things as simple as helping old ladies cross the road or bringing hurt animals to the vet.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable book for me. The narrator, Landon, being a high school boy, had a very humorous and casual tone that made a pleasant read. The story was realistic and while reading it was easy to understand how the characters are feeling because many situations were very easy to relate to. Towards the end, the author gives you the most unexpected turning points and sometimes even forces a few tears to your eyes while still keeping that smile by your lips. I strongly recommend this book for anyone who’s looking for a causal read about a sweet and touching love story.