Dawson and Amanda meet as teens in small town Louisiana. He's from the well-known for all the wrong reasons Cole family, and Amanda is from the upstanding Collier family. Despite social and economic divides, and the strong opposition from her family, Dawson and Amanda fall in love. After an incident with his family, Dawson is taken in by Tuck, a local widower who becomes a loving paternal figure to both of them. Tragedy strikes, though, and Dawson is the cause of the death of a local doctor after a car crash one night. He gets sent to jail and him and Amanda lose touch.
Until twenty-five years later, when Tuck dies and his lawyer contacts both Dawson and Amanda as they are requested to spread his ashes at his requested place. Is this their second chance? Dawson has never lost his love for Amanda. Amanda is married to a man who became an alcoholic after their youngest daughter died of cancer. Over the weekend that they spend together, orchestrated by Tuck from the grave, they know that they still love one another. BUT.
Amanda is married. Y'all, I know that marriage is a big deal. But I also know that sometimes people shouldn't be married anymore. It's not a failure to recognize that one's marriage is no longer working and it can't be fixed. That's especially true if you love someone else. Amanda admits to Dawson that on her wedding day to Frank she was thinking of him. If her and Dawson hadn't been reunited due to Tuck's passing, she would just go on living her life with an unfulfilling marriage.
Her weekend with Dawson is a chance for her to assess what she really wants and make a choice. But she doesn't do any of that. She tells Dawson to tell her what to do. When she goes through the reasons why she can't end her marriage they are all based on the emotions of others and not what she wants or needs. Frank wouldn't be able to handle it, he'd drink even more. The kids would be traumatized. She'd be breaking up her family and leaving them.
None of that is true though. Of course she shouldn't be callous to Frank's feelings, but his reactions and how he handles a possible divorce are on him. The kids would likely not be traumatized, as long as her and Frank are still both committed parents. And she would not be breaking up the family. It's not as if her and Dawson are planning to run away together to Italy and never see her kids again. Getting divorced isn't "breaking up the family"; you're still a family regardless if you're divorced. As a child of divorce myself, I know that it can be hard. But it's truly better for everyone in the long run when it's the right choice to make. Parents are people outside of being a parent, and they deserve happiness too. Life is too short to be in a relationship that isn't right. It's good for kids to see their parents be in healthy relationships (be that with another partner or staying single).
But Dawson and Amanda don't talk about any of that. They choose to be martyrs, as if it's virtuous of them to neglect their own happiness and well-being to "do what's right." That's not virtuous, because at some point the kids will grow and move out of the house and then it's just these two people who aren't right for each other.
So, unlike Allie in The Notebook who realizes she can't marry Lon even though she made a promise to him because she loves someone else, Amanda chooses to return to her home and husband. Just in time for her son to get in a car crash and need a heart transplant. At the same time, Dawson is involved in a family altercation which, sadly, makes him an organ donor. You can deduce what happens next.
Sparks fills his story with a large, yet mostly unimportant, supporting cast. Where he used to keep his stories limited to his main couple with a few people around them (generally disapproving parents or a close confidant), he now spends time with Amanda's son and husband, Dawson's cousins that are out to get him even still, his cousin's girlfriend, the widow of the local doctor he accidentally killed in a car crash, plus her son. It is A LOT and most of the time I don't enjoy Sparks' characterization of supporting characters, and it always feels a bit silly when he writes "bad" language or describes a character's sinister thoughts. I would have preferred a story that was confined to Dawson and Amanda, but then I guess it would have really just been a retelling of The Notebook.
Since I didn't grow up in a small town and I never had a high school romance with someone who was from "the wrong side of the tracks", I always feel like the emphasis on those things are super extreme. Do parents really forbid their children from seeing someone because they are from a bad family? Are the strict social roles that people adhere to really a thing? It just always rings so false to me.
I thought I wasn't going to like this book because I had seen the movie and considered it "the cheating movie." Well, first, I thought I had seen the movie but when I watched it last night it turns out I hadn't seen it other than maybe twenty minutes. And second, it's not really a cheating movie, depending on what constitutes cheating to you. Dawson and Amanda don't cross that line (even though Sparks makes us think they did until several chapters later) but they do kiss and share emotional intimacy.
If I'm meant to believe that Dawson and Amanda are soulmates who have carried torches for each other for over twenty years, then of course I'm rooting for them even if Amanda is married. Which is a weird thing to do. I don't condone cheating, however I also see the intricacies involved that led these two people to make the choices they did. I'm not here to judge them on that; I'll just comment that if Amanda was truly happy and fulfilled in her marriage a weekend with Dawson would not have posed a problem.
I didn't dislike the novel, but I oftentimes felt frustrated with Dawson and Amanda for not being more assertive and honest in their feelings for one another. Amanda's mom straight up tells her that she's too afraid to make a choice and wants someone to do it for her, which is basically the worst person in the world making a correct statement. And in the end Amanda doesn't actually have to make a decision anymore, because Dawson dies. The tragedy was a bit much in this one and I honestly just wanted them to be happy together.
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