The Best of Me (novel)

The Best of Me is an American romance novel, written by Nicholas Sparks.

Plot

While working on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana, Dawson Cole is nearly killed in an explosion. He has a vision of a young woman while floating in the water. In the hospital, the doctor tells him he should have been killed from the fall alone. He survived in the water for hours. Next day, Dawson returns home after twenty years when he learns that his surrogate father, Tuck Hostetler has died. Tuck has a final wish he wants Dawson to carry out. When he arrives, Dawson is surprised that Tuck also arranged for Dawson's high school girlfriend, Amanda Collier, to join him. Tuck's intention was that Dawson and Amanda might rekindle their former romance. However, Amanda is now married.

Dawson, born into a notorious criminal family, committed petty crimes during his youth, mostly because he feared his family's retaliation. After being beaten by his father as a teen, he left home and moved into Tuck Hostetler's garage. Tuck, a local mechanic and recently widowed, forged a lifelong relationship with Dawson.

Dawson and Amanda fell in love after she deliberately disconnected the battery for her car so Dawson could fix it and dated despite her wealthy parents' objections. After graduation, Dawson forced Amanda to choose college over staying with him because his father Thomas 'Tommy' Cole and brothers Abee and Theodore 'Ted' Cole swore revenge on Tuck for taking Dawson and shooting his van. On prom night, they came to Tuck's house, beat him up, and Dawson, forgetting Amanda's corsage, returned with his cousin Bobby and Bobby's pregnant girlfriend April to find Tuck bleeding. Dawson, in a fit of rage, goes to his old house with a gun along with Bobby who tried to stop him. There he got into a scuffle with Tommy and the gun went off and killed Bobby. In order to get a shorter sentence he leads the FBI to his family and testifies against them in court but still gets an eight year sentence. Amanda visited him every day for a month and every week for a year but he never wanted to see her.

The next day, Amanda and Dawson meet with Tuck's lawyer and learn that they are to scatter Tuck's ashes at a cabin he owned with his wife. They have lunch and discuss their plans. Dawson learns that Amanda befriended Tuck in his last few years. Amanda and Dawson talk while having dinner together in Tuck's house they confess their love for each other. While there, Amanda's son Jared calls to go on a trip with his friend Mikey and she consents.

After Amanda leaves to go home, Dawson meets Bobby's ex-girlfriend April who tells him that Aaron, her and Bobby's son, was getting into trouble because he was hanging around Tommy, Abee and Ted. Dawson goes to his childhood home to get Aaron and return him to April and gets into a confrontation with Tommy but gets Aaron and leaves. That evening Amanda realises that she still wants Dawson and calls him but his phone goes to voicemail and she leaves a message. A little earlier Dawson confessed his love for Amanda in a letter in which the last line was, "Amanda you bring out the best of me". That night Amanda's mother Mrs. Collier came by her house to inform her that Jared was in an automobile accident and had an damaged artillery in his heart and was in dire need of a heart transplant else he would die. At that same time as Dawson is leaving his brothers try to kill him by trying to push his car with theirs in front of a moving train when that doesn't work, Ted gets out a gun and tries to shoot him but Dawson tricks him into shooting Abee instead then knocks Ted out with a piece of iron. Then while he is calling the police sheriff and volunteering to bring them to the station when he hears someone say "Dawson Cole" and when he turns around he sees his father with a rifle and before he can say anything Tommy shoots him in the chest. Back at the hospital Jared is being rushed into emergency surgery as they found a heart for him. A few days after Amanda, April, Aaron and a few others attend Dawson's funeral. Amanda goes back to the house and finds the letter Dawson wrote to her and upon reading it realises that Dawson was in love with her still. One year later Amanda is divorced from her husband Frank and is working with an abused kids and Jared is college. The book ends with her receiving a call from Jared in which he tells her that his doctor told him that after a year he put in a request to see who was his heart with him saying "He was thirty-nine when he died. He was from Down South like you. His name was Dawson Cole. Do you know him?". To which Amanda replied "Yeah I did." and Jared says "Cool next time I come home can you tell me about him?" and Amanda says "Yes I will."

Publication history

According to Little Brown book group, the book has been translated into "more than 40 languages."^[1] It was published on 11 October 2011 by Grand Central Publishing.^[1]

Awards and nominations

The Best of Me was ranked #2 in the Top 10 overall from Publishers Weekly.

Reception

According to Denise Garofalo, 'it transforms into a predictable yet depressing tale that is rushed and transparent and that suffers from cliche and a somewhat anticlimactic ending'. Laura Santana stated, "It fulfills every desire they have to swoon and be shocked."^[2]

Adaptation

References

Watch The Best of Me 2014 Full Movie Film Streaming Online

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