The Longest Ride (33/2020)

Title: The Longest Ride
Author: Nicholas Sparks
Published by: Grand Central Publishing, 2015
No. of Pages: 471

REVIEW 33/2020.

I have watched a few of Nicholas Sparks' movies. One of them is the Last Song, featuring Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth. It is a beautiful movie. I have also read another book by Nicholas Sparks, entitled Dear John. I have not, however, watched the movie. Nicholas has a way of writing beautiful love stories, meant for the young adults. His are the kind of love stories that will make you become teary-eyed, angry, frustrated and longing throughout your reading.

I chanced upon The Longest Ride movie when I was scrolling the movie titles in Unifi TV. A few days after, I went to the bookstore and found this book! I immediately bought it. This is the first media tie-in edition. Upon reading The Longest Ride, I couldn't help but reminisce the time when I was a young adult and so much in love. Being in love is a beautiful feeling, especially when we feel that the other person is the one we'd like to spend our whole life with. 

The Longest Ride is a story of two pairs of love birds who are deeply in love with one another.

The first is about Ira and Ruth Levinson. It sets the background of how they met back in the early 1940s, their lives after they got married and Ira, after Ruth was gone. The interesting part is, their story was told in a conversation between Ira and his wife, whom have passed away nine years earlier. Ira was badly injured in a car accident and it was snowing. While trying to keep himself alive, in the hope that someone would come and rescue him, he conjured his wife sitting next to him in the car. 

Not only could Ira see her, he could also hear her and they talked. He could also feel her when she touched and caressed him.

The second story is about Luke Collins, a bull rider and Sophia Danko, a senior at Wake Forest University. They first met when Sophia attended a bull riding event after being persuaded by her roommate. 

They did not hit it off instantly, but it was love at first sight for both couples.  

This book takes the reader from one character to the next, in and out, centering on Ira, Luke and Sophia. That’s how the chapters of this book were written. Theirs are two different stories, which would make one wonder, what is the connection between them and how would they meet? Only on page 417 would we be able to get the answer.  

The one common thing between these two pairs is the fact that they came from different backgrounds.

Ira is the son of a shop owner, who knows nothing about art while Ruth is passionate about art. However, they ended up collecting a lot of artworks, because Ira knew that they made Ruth happy and her happiness was what meant the most to him. On the other hand, Luke is the son of a female rancher named Linda, and who is also living the high-risk life as a bull rider. Trying to keep the ranch going and avoiding it from being bankrupt, he takes up bull riding to pay for the expenses and loan. While Sophia is a city girl from New Jersey, who is also a senior at the Wake Forest University, studying art history.

After falling in live with Sophia, Luke was on a cross-road between his passion for bull riding and quitting the dangerous sports. Though bull riding could provide him with the means to help his mother pay for the ranch, something else is preventing him from pursuing his passion. His health condition. But eventually, he did quit. 

Their unexpected meeting with Ira leads to an unexpected turn of event in Luke’s life. He did something that Ira had done for his lovely Ruth. Sacrifice.

Two things that put me off from this book - the lack of depth in their connection with Ira and the way Luke proposed to Sophia. In the movie, Sophia spent some time with Ira and reading him the letters that he has written for Ruth. She even ran to Ira after she broke up with Luke. I can feel the deep connection between them, that makes sense for the ending of the story to occur.  In this book, they spent only one night with Ira and that is the night when they rescued him. The next day, Ira died. I could not feel their deep connection with Ira in this book, not as much as shown in the movie.  The way Luke proposed to Sophia was also a turn-off.

Nevertheless, it is a beautiful love story (stories). Of course it is with a happy ending. But the way it ends is something that is extra-ordinary. 

Two things that I could take away from this story - 1) Ira and Luke did whatever they could to make the love of their life happy; and 2) Don't think about tomorrow too much. If you love to read about beautiful young adult love stories, then I would recommend reading this book. 

Considering that it is a light reading for me and with a good story line, I'm giving it a THREE (🌟🌟🌟) star rating.