Summary - The Notebook The story begins with Noah, an 80-year-old man, reading to a woman in a nursing home.
He tells her the following story: Noah, 31, returns from World War II to his town of New Bern, North Carolina. He finishes restoring an antebellum-style house, after his father's death. Meanwhile Allie, 29, sees the house in the newspaper and decides to pay him a visit. They are meeting, again, after a 14-year separation, which followed their brief but passionate summer romance when her family was visiting the town. They were separated by class, as she was the daughter of a wealthy family, and he worked as a laborer in a lumberyard then. Seeing each other brings on a flood of memories and strong emotions in both of them. They have dinner together and talk about their lives and the past. Allie learns that Noah had written letters to her, every day of one year, 365 letters after their breakup. She realizes that her mother must have intercepted his letters. They talk about what could have happened between them without her mother's interference. At the end of the night, Noah invites Allie to come back the next day and promises her a surprise. She decides to see him again. During this time, her fianc, Lon, tries to reach her at the hotel. When Allie does not respond to his calls, he begins to worry. The next day, Noah takes Allie on a canoe ride in a small lake where swans and geese swim. She is enchanted. On their way back, they are caught in a storm and end up soaked. When they return to his house, they talk again about how important they were to each other, and how their feelings have not changed. Noah and Allie share a kiss and make love. Allie's mother shows up the next morning and gives Allie the letters from Noah. When her mother leaves, Allie is torn and has a decision to make. She knows she loves Noah, but she does not want to hurt Lon. Noah begs her to stay with him, but she decides to leave. She cries all the way back to the hotel and starts reading the letters her mother returned to her. At the hotel, her fianc, Lon, is waiting in the lobby. The man stops reading the story at this point, and tells the reader that he is reading to his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and does not recognize him. He explains that he is also ill, battling a third cancer, and suffering heart disease, kidney failure, and severe arthritis in his hands. He resumes reading the story and describing their life together: her career as a famous painter, their children, growing old together, and finally the diagnosis of Alzheimer's. He had changed the names in the story to protect her, but he is Noah and she is Allie. They walk together and Allie, although she does not recognize him, says she might feel something for him. That night they have dinner together. Referring to the story, she says that she thinks Allie chose Noah. Recognizing her husband, she tells him that she loves him. They embrace and talk, but after almost four hours, Allie fades and begins to panic and hallucinate. She forgets who he is again.
Summary The Last Song Veronica Ronnie Millers life was turned upside down when her parents divorced and her father, Steve, moved to Wrightsville, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains distant from her parents, particularly Steve, until her mother decides it would be everyones best interest if she and her brother spent the summer with him. Resentful and rebellious, Ronnie rejects Steves attempts to reach out to her and threatens to return to New York before the summers end. But soon Ronnie meets Will, the last person she thought shed ever be attracted to, and finds herself falling for him, opening herself up to the greatest happiness and pain that she has never known. Ronnie finds out that Steve has stomach cancer. She and her brother, Jonah, finish the window that Jonah started with Steve for the church. Jonah goes back to New York with their mother, but Ronnie stays back with Steve until his death. She completes the song on the piano that he began to write. She and Will part after the funeral and she believes that they will never meet properly again, she thought it was over, but after Christmas, he transfers and goes to college in New York, near where Ronnie goes to college, so he can spend more time with Ronnie.
