The Last Song rules!

" Life (he realized) was much like a song.
In the beginning, there is a mystery, in the end there is a confirmation,
but it's in the middle where all the emotions resides to make the whole thing worthwhile. " - The Last Song.

The Last Song, by Nicholas Sparks, is a true winner. It's actually his best and tops my favourite list amongst his other books. Seriously, The Wedding and A Walk To Remember, step aside, The Last Song becomes my personal favourite now and after completing this magnificent piece, it further proves that Nicholas Sparks is my all time favourite writer, and his writings have much influenced mine as well!

Why i like it? Simple, it's a fine combination of both my other favourites from him. Somehow, reading, it, i can feel the convergence between The Wedding and A Walk To Remember. We have Wilson Lewis in The Wedding, Steve in The Last Song. Landon Carter in A Walk To Remember, Will in The Last Song. And both these characters have been a pleasure to read. Fine characterisation.

And then we have an amazing storyline. Reading most of his books, i didn't really feel the twist in this; i'd anticipated that. In one way or another, NS kills the character, one of them. Then we have fire, rebellion, sister-brother love, father-daughter love, couple love, summer romances, piano, turtles, volleyball, fishing, church window, jealousy, friendship, trust, resentment, acceptance, forgiveness, joy and death. The ending of the story is absolutely tear-jerking.

He succeeds in all level. Jonah and Ronnie show beautiful brother-sister love. Ronnie-Blaze/Galadriel, Will-Scott, Steve-Pastor Harris all show the strength of their friendship and the turbulence they'd have to face. Ronnie-Will, similar to Landon and Jamie, show the powerful crafting of love blossoming between the two. From how they'd first met in the volleyball match, how she'd disliked him at first, slowly falling in love with one another, fishing dates, aquarium dates, and how the ending of the summer drifted them apart. However, it is Steve-Ronnie relationship that prevails the most. Steve, like Wilson, felt he'd left his family, and for after three years they'd never talked to each other.

It was this summer that he'd requested his ex-wife to invite both Ronnie and Jonah to accompany him during the break. And everything happened (i'm not telling much, just the necessary stuffs you may need to know). Ronnie was rebellious, disliking her presence in the little place from her New York home, disliking the people, but most importantly disliking his dad. She was angry at her dad for leaving her mother.

It's a true rollercoaster of emotion as well. As you read, you'll feel the change in character of Ronnie, how she'd then open her heart back to her dad (something happened, that's for you to investigate). And it was clearly her dad's love towards her.

This is the best title one could think of for this story. The Last Song. Why? Steve is a music teacher, then pursued his dreams to become a concert piano player. When Ronnie was a child, he taught her piano and when he'd left them, Ronnie hated the piano. She'd hated it a lot, while Steve loved it. And during the summer they'd spent together, for the love of her daughter, he'd built a wall to separate himself from the piano. Sacrifices of a father.

If you reach three quarter of the book, you'll understand what it means by The Last Song. And reading a book about piano heightened my love for it as well. During this holidays, i'm definitely dedicating myself to discovering more on the piano.

I'll stop here for the book review. In short, 5 stars! Awesome! Go-and-read and you'll-be-satisfied. This book is REALLY REALLY fantastic. Love and death.

Onto football, one by one, the big names are falling. Spain, France, Germany and Italy struggles. Brazil was amazing and i'd love to see them maintain their fighting spirit. Group stage coming to an end with all the third matches coming soon.

The Last Song is wc10 favourite book from now on.

" You have to love something before you can hate it. "