The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks (Review)

Another week, another book review from my Jamaica holiday. Growing up, especially as a young teenager, I grew up falling in love with every Nicholas Sparks book and all the film adaptations. Every single story of love set my expectations high for the man in my own romance fairytale. 

The Wedding is an interesting sequel to the ever-famous The Notebook. Instead of continuing the story directly, it shades the life of Noah and Allie’s daughter and her husband. After reading what ended up being a not so happy ending previously, I wanted a happy and loving story so I was very disheartened when I first started reading. 

Sharing the journey to rebuild love again, following a 30 year marriage coming close the divorce, we go through the journey from the male perspective and understand the emotions involved when relationships get placed on the back burner and not prioritised. Despite never being married or in such a long relationship in comparison, I found myself relating to so many of the emotions, steps and feelings shared. I cried tears of sadness and tears of joy alongside the characters. I was moved in moments that I didn’t expect. There’s a couple of pages I wish I could share with my old partner, in the hope that we could one day rekindle our own romance. 

I couldn’t help but love the snippets of Noah and Allie’s life as well. It was special to see the ties between the family members, see how their story ended, but also the relationship between elderly parents and grandparents. Going through similar emotions with my own grandma at present, it’s nice to see this shared. 

Overall, this was a story written from a new perspective for me. I really enjoyed the refreshing approach, but I do think it is more so written for an older reader and I’m glad it isn’t one I selected as a teenager because I don’t think I would have appreciated it as much.