a walk to remember novel by nicholas sparks

Agent, Theresa Park, Sanford Greenburger Associates. Although the narrator declares, ''My story can't be summed up in two or three sentences it can't be packaged into something neat and simple that people would immediately understand,'' this is the author's most simple, formulaic, and blatantly melodramatic package to date. Readers may be frustrated with the invariable formula that Sparks seems to regurgitate with regularity. Now tortured by his knowledge of what will be her terrible fate, he must make the ultimate decision that catapults him into adulthood. Landon realizes he's in love with Jamie, but, of course, she is hiding a devastating secret that could wring her from Landon's arms forever. The teens visit needy orphans, give Oscar-worthy performances in the school play and share dreams watching the sunset. Landon endures the taunting of his friends and forms an uneasy friendship with Jamie, which is carefully supervised by her father. Afterwards, Jamie asks him to participate with her in the metaphor-laden school Christmas play (Jamie plays the angel). Despite conspiring in Jamie's derision, class president Landon, desperate for a date for the homecoming dance, finds himself asking Jamie.

Jamie Sullivan, the Bible-toting minister's daughter, with her drab brown sweaters, spinster hairstyle and sincere, beatific advice, is the obvious target of high school ridicule. In a corny flashback device that mimics The Notebook, 57-year-old Landon Carter spirits himself back to his fateful senior year in high school in Beaufort, N.C., when he was an archetypal troublemaking teenager of the 1950s, changed forever by an unexpected first love. Sure to wring yet more tears from willing readers' eyes, the latest novel by the bestselling Sparks is a forced coming-of-age story concerning a pair of unlikely young lovers.

A walk to remember novel by nicholas sparks