Author: Nicholas Sparks
First Published: September 2013
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
398 pages (hardcover)
Ahh, so this is actually my very first Nicholas Sparks novel. I’ve never read any of his books before this, never even seen any of the movies his books got turned into (yes, I know, this means I never watched The Notebook before …!) The reason I picked this novel up was because I won a contest at Chapters a long time ago (maybe last year?) The prize was a bag full of merchandise, so I got tea, a mug, candles, a throw blanket … and this one hardcover book, which was a signed copy of The Longest Ride. I was pretty excited that it was autographed, even though I never read his books before, haha.
Anyway, The Longest Ride actually consists of two stories that will overlap at the end of the novel. The first story is about 91 year old Ira Levinson, a war veteran whose wife, Ruth, died 9 years ago. He ends up driving his car into a ditch and is stuck there for several days. Until rescue arrives, he hallucinates seeing his beloved wife, Ruth, in the seat next to him. The vision of Ruth reminisces about their life together, in order to help keep Ira awake and alert.
The second story is about Sophia and Luke, two young 20-somethings in a small town. Sophia is a college student studying art history, who recently broke things off with her three-time cheating boyfriend Brian. Luke is a professional bull rider and helps run and maintains his family ranch nearby. The two meet by chance at a country-themed party, and begin to fall in love with one another.
This was a sweet story and I enjoyed reading this book. I found Ira and Ruth’s love story more romantic than Sophia and Luke’s, but maybe that’s just because there’s something charming about finding love in the 1930’s, compared to the present day story of Sophia and Luke. When it comes to the two couples, I found it easier to immerse myself and believe that Ira and Ruth were very much in love. The hardships they experienced like getting permission from each other’s parents to date, the world wars, infertility, etc. all made their relationship seem so romantic. With Sophia and Luke, I had a slightly harder time, maybe because of stereotypes or something. You know, beautiful college girl meets drop-dead-gorgeous cowboy at a raving party and they fall in love … I guess it just didn’t start off very romantic, at least to me.
Funny enough, even though I think Ira and Ruth’s relationship was the more genuine of the two, I like Sophia and Luke’s story better, for some reason. It was the story that took up more parts of the novel, for one. Sometimes, I wished this novel focused solely on Sophia and Luke instead of bouncing back and forth between the two narratives. Sophia and Luke’s relationship may have some stereotypical stuff happening in it that kind of made me groan (the vengeful ex-boyfriend, the perky best friend sidekick, Sophia never really fitting in at her school, you know, things like that), but it was actually a sweet relationship. Romantic? That’s a strong word for them, and one I’d reserve for Ira and Ruth, but sweet? It definitely was.
My only major complaint is the tie bringing the two stories together was kind of weak and didn’t happen until the very end of the novel. This is another reason why I would have liked it if the book just focused on Sophia and Luke.
The novel, overall, was charming pleasant to read. It was no roller-coaster ride, but it was like taking a nice drive around the countryside. Relaxing and satisfying at the end.
My Rating: 3/5
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