The Last Song, The Last Straw: Why I hate Nicholas Sparks..In the most loving way possible

Every time. He does this to me every time.

I should expect to cry at the end of a Nicholas Sparks novel by now. But my tears caught me off guard once again as I turned the last, now tear soiled, pages of The Last Song.

I must admit, I wasn't extremely excited about reading this book. I wanted to read it out of pure curiosity. I'd been hearing about this story that Sparks had written especially for Miley Cyrus, and I thought, I wonder what a Cyrus/Sparks collaboration would look like.

So...it took me a while after purchasing the book to actually read it. But read it I did, and let me just say first off that I loved it.

I'm a big advocate of the story shining through the writing. As in, I don't let "bad writing" deter me from reading a book.

For example I don't fully understand the argument against Stephenie Meyer and Twilight, but that's another hub for another day.

Not to say that Nicholas Sparks is a bad writer, I mean, he's a millionaire so he must be doing something right. The story was simple, easy to understand. He didn't coat it with meaningless adjectives just to make it sound pretty.

This very well told story follows the very likable Ronnie Miller, despite the fact that she has an attitude for half of the book. 

Her attitude understandably comes from the fact that Ronnie's father left her mother when she was 15 and she doesn't really know why. She hasn't spoken to him in three years. Now, the summer after she has graduated high school, she is forced to spend with him in North Carolina instead of at home in New York City.

Ronnie displays her distaste for her summer plans by ignoring her father once she is in North Carolina, and rebelling by staying out at all hours of the night.

Then Ronnie meets Will and everything changed. Will is the opposite of the kind of guy Ronnie usually goes for--he's preppy, the golden boy of the town.

You can pretty much guess what happens after that.

Miley Cyrus said in a recent interview that she went to Disney execs and told them that she'd be interested in doing something like "A Walk To Remember" and they put her in touch with Sparks.

So I guess this story is like a reverse of that one. Making Miley Cyrus, Shane West and Liam Hemsworth, Mandy Moore.

JUST SO YOU ARE SUFFICIENTLY WARNED. PLOT SPOILERS BELOW

Actually, I don't know how much of a spoiler this actually is--this is a Nicholas Sparks novel after all...but someone dies.

Shocker, I know. I actually wasn't all that surprised at who it was either. I don't know why but I had a feeling that it wouldn't be Ronnie or Will. I mean, I know this was supposed to be somewhat of a rip off of "A Walk to Remember" but killing off one of the young lovers would have been way too predictable. Even for a Sparks novel.

I saw the movie and loved it. It was a little different than the book, but not enough that it bothered me. And Miley Cyrus was good.

I'm not going to even say "surprisingly good" because implies that just because she was on Disney Channel that she's talentless. Which apparently is not true. A lot of reviews are saying that the story is lacking, but Miley has officially proved that she can do something other than Hannah Montana.

Which is a success in my book.