Behind many great movies are original books. In fact, some of the most successful movies of all time were books first: “Harry Potter,” “The Hunger Games,” “Lord of the Rings,” “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Perks of Being a Wallflower” and the “Notebook,” to mention only a few. Still, if you’re one of those people that learns about the book’s existence after already seeing the movie, listen up.
The novel “The Longest Ride” by Nicholas Sparks is one of his various romance stories, and now is the time to read the love tale before the movie comes out in theaters this spring.
“The Longest Ride” brings readers through two simultaneous love stories. First introduced is ninety-one-year-old Ira Levinson. Stranded and injured after a car crash, he retains his consciousness by reminiscing with a vision of his wife Ruth, who passed away nine years before.
He starts with the first time he saw her as she walked into his parents’ modest shop, and the two detail their love even as Ira knows Ruth isn’t physically present. Readers experience the deep relationship between Ira and Ruth through their stories of young nervousness and anticipation, as well as through their loving banter as they recount old memories.
Still, the fear and danger of Ira’s accident looms just beyond the small paradise he’s created with his remembered Ruth, leaving the reader wondering how and when he’ll be saved.
Nearby, college senior Sophia Danko attends a local bull-riding event with some of her sorority sisters. There she meets Luke Collins, a cowboy who stands up for her in an unpleasant situation with her drunken ex-boyfriend. They end up talking and stargazing in the bed of his truck, managing to forget their own problems while together under the night sky.
Soon, the lives of an innocent city girl and a determined cowboy begin to intertwine as Sophia and Luke embark upon their own love story. However, life fights back against their peacefulness when Luke decides to start competitively bull-riding again after 18 months on the sidelines from a severe injury.
Sparks switches back and forth between Ira’s memories with Ruth and the real time events of Sophia and Luke. These alternating perspectives allow for a dynamic plot line as readers follow two separate stories, all the while wondering when and how the perspectives will meet. Ira struggles to stay alive, mirroring the fight Sophia and Luke are in for their love.
As a reader, it could be easy to get lost among constant declarations of love or sappy scenes of devotion, but Sparks doesn’t allow for this to happen. There are moments when one might feel his or her heart melting around the edges from the obvious depth of love shared between two characters but Sparks balances these pictures of perfection with practicality and the troubles that inevitably find relationships; readers can believe in the love stories as realities instead of dream-like fairytales.
“The Longest Ride” is a heart-warming story with the ability to restore or confirm your faith in love. The movie will premiere in only a few months, and though the story will be the same, there are always a few changes from the book’s original storyline, for better or for worse. But judging these alterations is only possible if you’ve read the book first, so don’t be afraid to pick up the novel and fall in love with the idea of romance.
