This is the story of a nearly 18 year old city girl named Ronnie who, with her little brother, goes to live with her father on the beach of a small town for the summer.   Being pulled away from city living to spend the summer with a father that left her family Ronnie doesn’t want to be anywhere near her father.  She hasn’t spoken to him in several years and now she has to live with him.  But the summer is sure to bring more drama then she has ever had to deal with as there is a boy in town who has decided that she is his whether she knows it or not. 

Nicholas Sparks is a master at making me cry.  I only pick up his books when I need a good tear-jerker.  This book is soon to be a movie so I thought I would read it before it came out.  I related to Ronnie in one way, we both had absent fathers that we looked up to.   I understood why she was always so mad at him, but that’s about the only thing we have in common.  This book is so filled with teen anger and frustration that fireworks had to go off somewhere in it.  The symbolism of it was spot on to what if feels like when a parent leaves you (at least that’s how it was for me).  If you have ever had a parent leave or you just need a good cry then pick up this book.

-Hannah