In Which Trai Reviews 'Voices of Dragons'

The Book: Voices of Dragons

The Author: Carrie Vaughn

How I Found It: As I've said before, big fan of Carrie Vaughn's; I had this one on pre-order for months.

The Review: Kay Wyatt lives in our world. There are cell phones, the Internet, GPS systems. The one thing that differentiates her world from ours? In certain parts of the world, dragons are cloistered, sealed off from humans by the Border.

Kay is 17 and an avid rock climber. Looking for an adventure, she climbs very near to the border of Dragon, knowing full well what a risk she is taking. However, when she reaches the top of the rocks, she accidentally slips and is dragged into the river. She almost drowns before she is rescued by a curious dragon.

To Kay's surprise, the dragon can talk, and is eager to know her. Dragons and humans have been in a cold war since a treaty was formed after World War II, and neither side is comfortable with the other. Although Kay is breaking the law by being over the border, she agrees to meet the dragon again, since he wants to practice his English by talking to her.

Kay and the dragon become friendly. He picks himself the name Artegal, and Kay learns from him that dragons can read and write. They slowly begin flying lessons when Artegal reveals to Kay that humans and dragons used to peacefully coexist. The cold war begins to come to an end, however, when a plane goes down in Dragon and the dragons attack Kay's town, leaving Kay and Artegal grasping at straws for a way to prove coexistence is possible.

I was eager to see how Vaughn's writing would adapt for a YA audience. I was a young adult myself when I started reading the Kitty books, but those are mainly for an adult audience. I was really pleased at how different the tone of this book was from the Kitty books; it really showed Vaughn's range as a writer. Kay is not the snarky, savvy heroine that Kitty is-- she is a regular teenager who has merely become caught in something she can't control. I'm not much older than Kay, and I could identify with her very easily. Vaughn definitely had the teen mindset down. (There were times when I wondered if some things were overkill, such as her friend Tam's constant focus on sex, but I realized how clever it was as it came into play later on.)

The book is also fairly serious in tone, also unlike the Kitty books (for the most part). It is a story about a war, and that is very clear. I felt the portrayal of a country at wartime was very accurate. It's also a story about prejudices, and those, too, were well-defined and palpable. I do wish we could have seen more from the dragons' side, to have known their opinions on things, but since this was from Kay's perspective and thus the human point of view, I couldn't fault the book for that. I just wish we'd gotten more information on the dragons than we did.

I really liked how strong the characterizations were. Kay is strong, confident, and doesn't need guys to help her or any of that. (She does have her boyfriend, Jon, but more often than not, she's by herself, which was so nice to see.) Her friends Tam and Jon are sort of on the sidelines most of the time, but it was interesting to see elements of a teen novel mixing with straight fantasy like dragons. I was expecting a story set in the past (though I don't know why, since the cover wasn't exactly advertising that, with the tank top and all), so I was surprised to see it be a modern story. That was what I liked about it-- it showed how a war like this would be in modern times. Anyway, back to the characterizations: really nice to see a functional set of parents, for once. Kay's parents are competent and have important jobs, as her dad is the sheriff and her mom is part of border control. Artegal could have been used a little more, but I liked the bond between him and Kay the most.

I really enjoyed the story a whole lot. It's very plot driven-- there's more descriptions of events and such than dialogue-- but I like stories with plots. The story was also emotionally affecting; I laughed at a few points and cried at another. The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, and I asked Vaughn via Facebook whether or not a sequel is on the way. She said there is an idea but it hasn't been written. If it is, I'll be first in line to buy it.

Highly recommended to young teens looking for a good fantasy, and older readers like me who either know the Kitty books or just have an interest in dragon-themed novels.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Morning Glory'

The Book: Morning Glory

The Author: LaVyrle Spencer (FYI, her name = ridiculously hard to spell and/or pronounce)

How I Found It: The very enthusiastic recommendations of the lovely ladies who pointed me towards pretty much all of the forties books I read/will read.

The Review: Oh, wow, talk about high expectations for this one! The people who directed me towards it in the first place told me it was lovely, and then a whole bunch of people in the comments section over at Smart Bitches mentioned it as the book that got them into romance. I went into the book wondering if it could possibly live up to all that hype, and I'm quite pleased to say it did.

The novel opens with a brief prologue taking place in 1917. Chloe See has come back to Whitney, Georgia to live with her parents after bearing an illegitimate child. Her father is a religious revival leader and her mother a very fervent churchgoer herself, and refuse to even look at her child. Taking their daughter and granddaughter home, they lock them in the house and refuse to let them out for fear of being shamed.

Years later, in 1941, a man named Will Parker has just recently started working at a sawmill. He is a loner and a drifter, not prone to making friends. Soon enough, he is fired from the sawmill due to the fact that he has a prison record and was recently paroled. The men take jabs at him and mention an ad placed by a local woman-- one about seeking a husband.

That woman is the illegitimate child of Chloe See. She is Eleanor Dinsmore, called Elly, a recent widow with two sons and a third child of her late husband's on the way. She has been ridiculed all her life by the townspeople and refuses to go beyond the confines of the farm. Will goes to answer Elly's ad and finds her living in poor conditions, her husband never having been much for keeping up the place, but agrees to stay around and help her with the farm, the main reason she needs a husband.

Will slowly proves himself to be dependable and reliable, and Elly comes to trust herself and her boys around him, even with his past criminal record. In time, they follow through with marriage. It slowly becomes clear to them that they love each other. Through the birth of a child, war, and a criminal trial, their love manages to sustain the unlikely pairing.

This book was pretty much everything I was looking for in a romance. Elly and Will were very well-developed characters and I certainly felt for both of them. I also really enjoyed the character of Miss Beasley, a spinster librarian who is very kind to Will and Elly and a real sweetheart. She's the type of character I picture Kathy Bates playing in a movie, for some reason.

The characters were nicely fleshed out, and I also enjoyed how well Spencer handled the family relationships. The gradual developing of Will's relationship with Donald Wade and Thomas, Elly's sons, was so sweet to read, and Elly was portrayed as a wonderful mother. I really liked seeing a positive depiction of a growing relationship between a stand-in parent and the children.

Spencer also did well blending a few different genres. There was the romance between Elly and Will. There was the domestic elements of their life on the farm and the little things Will does to improve it. There was the parts of the book that took place during the war, and Spencer's detailing of what Will experienced and what the country was going through. And then there was the sort of crime drama of the last fifty or sixty pages, as someone in the town is killed and Will is suspected of the crime. The story was well-put-together and flowed easily.

The book was more explicit than I was expecting, I will say that-- it was written in the eighties, so I suppose it doesn't have to be all that clean, but I was a little stunned at the amount of detail and phrasing Spencer put in. It wasn't a bad thing, though; it felt authentic and that was all that mattered.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book. The growing love between Elly and Will was a real pleasure to read and I just really loved how well it captured the quiet, little things in life, like Will's simple joy at finally having someone love him, or even something as small as getting to have a library card. I can really understand why people flock to this book to read and reread it, and I'd like to try more of Spencer's, in addition to getting myself a nice, sturdy copy for rereading! Really highly recommended to romance fans and fans of the forties.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Dear John: The Movie' and Rants About War Movies

** This post will contain major spoilers for the book and film Dear John. I will also have in-depth discussion and analysis of The Hurt Locker and Stop-Loss.**

"The way I see it, Steve's married to the Army." (Michelle, Steve's wife, in Stop-Loss)

"The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." (Chris Hedges, epigraph to The Hurt Locker)

My review of the book is located here.

My viewing of Dear John was delayed by the fact that public transportation here sucks! :) I went with two girlfriends today to see the film, finally. I was the only one who had read the book, but it didn't so much matter.

As a film, I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually good--I've stated my distaste for the film adaptation of The Notebook before, as I felt it was melodramatic and poorly acted. Dear John is melodramatic, yes, but the acting was really pretty good. Channing Tatum pretty much has a certain range as the repressed angry guy, but he was a decent romantic lead. Amanda Seyfried elicited the same mixed feelings I had for Savannah in the novel. Richard Jenkins was really perfect as John's father, who has Asperger's Syndrome; I really pitied him and felt for him.

As an adaptation of the book, the film did decently well-- there isn't too much plot in the novel; it's more a study of the relationships and things like John narrating his experiences in the Army. So the film did pretty well with the core elements of the story-- John and Savannah's relationship as it develops early on, John and his father's relationship, John deciding to re-enlist after 9/11 and the tension it causes among him and Savannah, Savannah eventually getting engaged to another man, John's father dying, and then John seeing Savannah again for the first time in years.

Parts of it were done really well-- I especially liked how nicely the scenes with John and his father were handled. The opening monologue, which turns out to be John's letter to his dying father, was very sweet and touching. I was crying when John comes home and learns of his father's condition and when he reads his father the letter. (To a person who will never read this: nice older lady who handed me a tissue after the letter scene was done, thank you again!)

The parts that were changed, I wasn't quite sure why they had to be-- the ending is a big one, which I'll explain below. Two things felt unnecessary: John getting shot, an incident that doesn't happen in the book, and Tim being changed from close Savannah's age and Alan's brother to older than Savannah and Alan's father. John getting shot, I can sort of understand-- it is the impetus behind the letter he writes to his father years later. Changing Tim to Alan's father and older than Savannah was really unnecessary; I think it was just to further the agenda of the filmmaker, which I'll also try to explain my interpretation of below.

The movie did what I feared would happen-- Hollywoodized the ending. Changing the ending changes the entire point of the story, and it frustrated me to have an otherwise good movie severely marred by missing the point of the story simply to give the characters a Happily Ever After.

To explain my feelings about why the book's ending was necessary, I'll have to rehash the book's ending here. It is mostly intact in the movie, but with some important differences.

John goes to see Savannah after his father's funeral and learns that she has married Tim, a friend of hers who has an autistic brother he has taken care of in the wake of their parents' deaths (I believe). He learns that Tim is ill with cancer and doesn't have much time. Savannah wants to get Tim into a clinical trial, but doesn't have the money. Tim, when John visits, tells John that he wants him to make Savannah happy in the event of his death. Moved by Tim's love for Savannah, John calls his attorney to sell his father's extensive coin collection and asks the money to be donated anonymously to Savannah. After the donation is made, Tim receives the treatment and survives. Some time later, John watches her from afar and sees her looking at the moon, which they did on one of their first meetings-- he knows part of her is still in love with him. He is a lifer in the Army and Savannah continues her life with Tim.

The movie retains everything through John selling his father's coin collection, though it does not keep the scene where Tim asks John to be with Savannah after he dies. The movie's ending is different in some important details: John's donation allows Tim to get the treatment... which only gives Tim two more months to live. He dies, and some unspecified time later, John sees Savannah in a restaurant. She runs out to him and they hug, which ends the movie.

Okay. I have had to explain my feelings about the book's ending to many a misguided fangirl. Here goes: Dear John is a tragic love story. John and Savannah are not meant to be together. John's relationship with Savannah is a teaching point in his life: Tim is the one who gets him to realize what true love really is. This is exemplified when Tim puts Savannah's happiness above his own by essentially giving John permission to be with Savannah after his death. John is somewhat shocked that Tim cares enough about Savannah to value her happiness above his own priorities, because he has never done that. When the time came to choose between going home to Savannah and re-enlisting with the Army, he chose the Army. The Army is John's first priority, not Savannah, and for Tim, Savannah comes first. Seeing that Tim truly loves Savannah is what motivates John to do what he does. He decides Tim should live because Tim loves Savannah in a way John never can. His priority is the safety of his country and this is why he is a lifer in the end.

I understand the moviemakers felt the need to provide a happy ending, but I really feel as though the entire point of the story and its message about true love has been undermined. I would have much preferred the original ending, but I'm sure that would have led to many complaining fangirls ranting about how John and Savannah just have to be together, even though they aren't meant to be. I was also distressed that the movie changed Tim's character into a single father-- it seemed to give the impression that Savannah marrying him was an obligation. She states that she married him because he was sick and needed her help. In the book, she marries him out of love because he has always been there for her. I was annoyed that the filmmakers made the marriage into one of convenience just to make John/Savannah look better.

I said in my last review that I have had issues understanding the typical hero in a war movie. This applies to the heroes of The Hurt Locker and Stop-Loss, and to the ending of the book of Dear John: I'd like to see a war movie, just once, where the hero does not go back in the end. The Hurt Locker upset me because, in the end, James decides that the adrenaline rush from defusing bombs is something that he loves, even more than his love for his family. The movie ends with James returning for another year-long rotation with the bomb defusing unit. Stop-Loss upset me because a man who had already done all he could for his country was forced to give it all again-- though he considers leaving the country, he goes back on tour in the end.

I suppose I jinxed myself-- I said I wanted a movie where the hero didn't go back in the end and BAM, the ending for Dear John was changed, much to my chagrin. There's something interesting about the attitude of the lifer hero, but I wish war movies would offer a more hopeful ending once in a while. I get tired of seeing these films have the same downer ending. As much as I love this genre, I'd like to see a happy ending once in a while-- just not one that compromises the entire story, as the movie's ending did to Dear John.

I really did like Dear John as a film-- it was a good adaptation of the book, besides some unnecessary changes. For anyone that wants to see other war movies that are profoundly affecting, I very much recommend The Hurt Locker and Stop-Loss.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Distant Summer'

The Book: The Distant Summer

The Author: Sarah Patterson

How I Found It: This was another recommendation I received of a forties-era romantic story.

The Review: "See what I mean? Find someone with a future, Kate, and forget me. I'm already dead."

Katherine Hamilton is a British girl living in the midst of World War II. Every night, the RAF boys go on missions, air raids, and aren't guaranteed to come back. Katherine is just sixteen and can't fully understand the horrors of the war and the sheer amount of death that these young men experience.

While looking for her father, the pastor, Kathie discovers someone playing the church organ. At first glance, he appears to be a young man, but when he turns to face her, his face is older than his years. His name is Johnny Stewart, and he is a rear gunner for the RAF-- a position that means he will almost certainly die before his third tour, in progress, is over.

Despite herself, Kathie finds herself liking Johnny, who nicknames her Kate and invites her to a dance. It is at this dance that Kathie becomes acquainted with some of Johnny's friends-- particularly Richie, a sweet, Creole American member of the RAF who has known Johnny for some time.

At some points in their growing relationship, Kathie is baffled by Johnny's behavior. Why is he so cavalier about life and death? How are the other members of the RAF so casual about something so horrible? Will Johnny ever stop his thrill-seeking and settle into normal life, or will his luck run out just as it has for many of the other boys?

As Kathie becomes increasingly frustrated with Johnny's attitude, it is Richie who gets her to realize the full extent of what Johnny has been through-- experiences that have scarred him for life. As the summer wears on and Kathie becomes involved on the homefront, her thoughts become increasingly consumed with the fear that one day, Johnny may not come back alive.

This book is from the 1970s and is a really short story-- my copy is only 159 pages and I read the entire thing today. That being said, the author is a bit of a mystery-- the only thing I've been able to glean is that her father is a famous British novelist named Jack Higgins, and that she wrote this book when she was 16. Apparently, there haven't been any others.

I liked the book a lot for what it was, but it wasn't without its faults. Even with those, though, it was a really nice story, if a very derivative one, and I was impressed with the sheer amount of research about flying and such that went into this book. For a book written by a sixteen-year-old, it's pretty impressive that she knew as many details as she did.

The book's story is simplistic, but it was fairly well done. The plot is a cookie-cutter, really-- right down to Kathie being oblivious that Richie has feelings for her until something brings it to her attention, and right down to the fact that in the end, someone does die. All of this was pretty straightforward and easy to figure out, but I enjoyed the ride. The book definitely made me misty-eyed twice-- I did care about the character that died. The story was nicely paced and well-written, so that and the attention to detail were definitely the strengths.

The weaknesses: The characters were a little flat, in my opinion. Beyond the fact that Johnny is very, very lucky and a bit of an early adrenaline junkie, and the fact that Kathie is in love with him, they didn't really have any other defining qualities besides that. Richie was the only one who seemed vibrant enough as a character. I'm wondering if Kathie's characterization was vague on purpose-- if it was one of those situations where Patterson wanted the reader to, in effect, be Kathie. If that was the case, I can sort of forgive it.

With Johnny, though, I would've liked to see him have more depth than he did. When I think about it, he reminds me of Jeremy Renner's character in The Hurt Locker, which I saw very recently. In the film, Renner keeps returning to war because, as the epigraph puts it, "war is a drug." This was definitely the type of character that Johnny was made out to be, and he came off just as Renner's character did in The Hurt Locker-- in the end, Kathie probably won't ever understand him fully, and nor do we truly understand Renner at the end of the film. This could be another possible explanation for why Johnny didn't have much depth; maybe he wasn't meant to, since Kathie doesn't understand him until very late in the game.

I don't think the complaints of Kathie being selfish were all that justified-- yes, she was thinking only of herself at some points, but she was only a teenager and I think that's to be expected. In her situation, I'd be dead terrified if someone I loved was going off every night to potentially meet his death. Recently, with my whole devotion to the wartime romance thing, I've been having a really hard time bringing myself to understand the heroes in these things. I'll probably go more into that when I get to review the film of Dear John, which is also where I'll talk more about The Hurt Locker.

Overall, the strengths of the book were the emotional depth and the very realistic feel to it. The whole story felt very contemporary, and in my head, I found myself relating it to more modern stories. One of the best parts of the book, in my opinion, was a section where Johnny, a comrade, and Kathie go to visit the wife of a fallen company member. The wife is fairly angered by their presence, telling them, "Can't you see your presence can only do one thing? Remind me that you are alive and he is dead?" She then wishes Kathie luck, seeing that Kathie is in love with Johnny. This exchange reminded me of another recent drama, The Messenger, which was about two soldiers tasked with next-of-kin notification. The scene in the book made me wonder how much harder those visits make it on the remaining family, and it was definitely a powerful exchange. I could actually picture this book as a movie-- it has a surprising amount of action, and with certain selective changes to old-hat portions of the story and a little beefing up of the characters, it would make a good period drama.

This book was a very good little story. While it still had a very contemporary feel and the emotions it elicited were very real, I felt as though it could have been somewhat longer, a little less reliant on old tropes, and had a little more characterization. All in all, however, it was almost exactly what I was looking for in a forties-era romance, and it was definitely an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. Recommended to fans of the era in fiction.

In Which Trai Reviews 'If Only in My Dreams'

The Book: If Only in My Dreams

The Author: Wendy Markham

How I Found It: I asked on a forum for recommendations of romances that take place in the forties. This was one of the books recommended to me, in addition to a couple more. So if a bunch of books I review in the next couple weeks turn out to be war stories, that's why!

The Review: I was actually really impressed by this book. I didn't cry like many reviews warned could happen, but I was touched by the story and it was a little heartwarming to see a perfect happy ending.

(One complaint, though-- the woman on the cover art looks a little old for 29. It bothered me. The cover art for the sequel looks like this has been fixed.)

Clara McCallum has just received the shock of her life-- at 29 years old, she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and it is malignant. This isn't the greatest timing in the world, either, as Clara's big break is coming in the form of her newest acing role-- a biopic of some New York soldiers that perished during the Normandy landing. Clara plays the fictional bride of the dashing Jed Landry, their leader.

As Clara struggles to cope with her diagnosis, she arrives on set one day to shoot the scene where she meets Jed Landry at the train station. Only there's one problem-- the set's train takes her back to the actual 1940s, mere days before Pearl Harbor, where she meets the real Jed Landry... whom she knows will be dead in a few years.

Jed isn't sure what to make of Clara, who appears to him skittish and afraid. When she takes off and leaves some of her things behind, Jed is confounded by what he finds among her possessions, and when his search for her proves fruitless, he begins to wonder if Clara might be a spy.

Clara and Jed are attracted to each other after their brief meeting, but Clara has two problems-- she knows Jed is destined to die, and she also knows that her cancer is a death sentence in his time. Still, once she is back in the present, she finds herself wondering if it's possible she can save Jed or even the United States, changing what history has in store, or if it's possible that the present can hold love for her after what she's experienced with Jed.

This isn't quite science fiction-- Clara's time travel is never explained, not fully. She visits her old physics teacher, who explains that time travel would require more energy than the sun has, and Clara suspects the second time she time travels that she may have willed herself back, but that's about it. Just a warning for people who might want the legitimate time travel explanation; it's not quite here. But that's okay.

Anyway, I felt like this book was really well-put together. The connections between Clara's present and Jed's past were well done. Similarly, the forties details felt authentic (even if some of the slang would get a little annoying!). Reading Jed's sections did feel like he was a legitimate man from the forties; I could definitely believe the writing.

Some things were really cute-- such as Jed finding Clara's iPod, which he assumes must be a spy transmitter. It was funny to see how he reacted to the technology and how Clara attempted to explain. Clara and Jed's pairing felt natural-- it made sense for them to be a couple. Their attraction was nicely written and believable.

I don't quite know why I like wartime romances-- there's just something about the waiting and the uncertainty that strikes me as really emotional. Even if it's not something I can truly relate to, I can feel for the people it has happened and is still happening to. I liked that Markham did something different with this book-- instead of the woman being afraid the man would die at war, Clara knew Jed would die and still took the chance anyway, accepting it for however long it would last.

Overall, I really liked the book, and I might start looking into what else this particular imprint (Signet Eclipse, which publishes paranormal romance) has come out with. I've already bought the sequel to this book, The Best Gift, and I intend to read it soon. Highly recommended to fans of time travel fiction, paranormal romance, and the forties.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Dear John'

Yet again, two delayed reviews.

The Book: Dear John

The Author: Nicholas Sparks

How I Found It: Saw it in a lot of bargain-book piles and thought the premise sounded good. Movie trailer reminded me I had it sitting in my TBR pile.

The Review: I read The Notebook earlier this year mostly because I wanted to know what the hype was about, and because I was curious about the movie, since I really like Rachel McAdams.

So I read it. And it was "ehh." You could tell it was a first novel-- I know it was supposed to be the story of Noah and Allie and nothing else, but seriously, Lon and Allie's mother felt like freaking wallpaper. They had no purpose other than to scream, "WE ARE HERE TO PROVIDE CONFLICT IN THE PLOT!"

Also, as I've said before, I felt the movie wasn't all that great and poorly acted. I don't understand the praise for all the dramatic scenes-- it just seemed melodramatic, period, to me.

Anyway, enough bitching about how this isn't going to be a glowing "I LOVED THE NOTEBOOK NICHOLAS SPARKS IS GOD" review.

That being said, I really liked Dear John a whole lot. It was depressing as hell, but it packed more of an emotional punch than The Notebook did, at least for me. I cared more about John than I did about Noah, and had the mixed feelings for Savannah that Sparks probably intended, or at least I hope he did. I still think he has issues with secondary characters-- Tim can join Lon as "secondary love interest wallpaper"-- but again, it's basically a two-person story and I could forgive it.

The story: John Tyree was a rebel who decided his life was going nowhere and joined the Army to get himself straightened out. His relationship with his father, whose world revolves around coin collecting, had become strained, and he felt he had few other options.

The Army is good for him-- he quits his bad habits and finds that he is good with the jobs the Army requires him to do. When he returns home for a brief leave, it is to a world his reformed self no longer belongs in.

He first meets Savannah Lynn Curtis when her purse with all her money falls into the ocean at the beach, and he rescues it for her. They strike up a friendship built on conversations and surfing lessons, and the relationship quickly grows into love.

They're about as opposite can be, but John promises to marry Savannah once his tour is over. Savannah promises to stay faithful, but as John's tour is about to end, 9/11 tears apart the world and John re-enlists. Savannah supports his decision with mixed feelings, and eventually sends him the "Dear John" letter with the devastating news she has found someone else, leaving John lost. Adrift from his father and with the love of his life gone, where else does he have to turn but the Army?

There's more to the story, but it's too much to get into here. The plot sounds cliche, but Sparks did things with it I wasn't expecting, especially the resolution between the sort of triangle formed between John, Savannah, and her husband (no spoilers here). Maybe it felt like hand-waving, but it was nicely done and I hadn't been expecting it.

The subplot with John's father was also touching and sad, and it made me cry more than The Notebook (the book; the movie didn't make me cry at all) did. I suppose at this stage of my life it's easier for me to connect to something involving a parent than a longtime spouse. Whatever the case, it was nicely handled and I liked seeing how John gradually learned to accept his father for what he was.

Watching the trailer, I see what looks like differences between the novel and the movie, and I'm hoping they don't take the Hollywood route like they did with The Notebook, punching up the drama and everything, and I'm worried they'll change the ending. Whatever the case, I think I'll like to see how they do it.

I did have a gripe with the book that bothers me whenever I encounter it. Can't a character choose to be a virgin/wait for the right person without some kind of sex-related trauma in his/her past? It bugs the hell out of me that Sparks took that route.

I really did think the book was emotional, well-done, and had two strong, well-drawn lead characters, and I'm at least curious to see the movie version. Liking this one so much led me to purchase The Lucky One, Sparks' other book with a sort of military theme, and I'll read that one sometime soon.

Recommended to someone looking for romantic fiction with a bit of emotional release involved.