I usually enjoy Nicholas Sparks movies, but after having just struggled through reading my first one of his books ... I was not excited to read another one right away. However I was pleasantly surprised. It was a little slow at parts but I really enjoyed the plot and characters in this book better. I didn't like that it had so many similar background details to the characters of the last book I read, but I did like the ending. I was pleasantly surprised by ending since with this author I was expecting a tragedy. I don't however find this book to lend itself well for discussion so would not suggest for book club... maybe just a lazy day read.