Finally! A Nicholas Sparks book with a

happy ending.

. Nicholas Sparks has made me cry far too many times with his books. I was just so hesitant to read this book because I know there was a strong possibility of me seriously hating the ending of it and crying profusely.

Anyway, on to the review. This book has two sets of characters. There is Ida and Ruth. Ida is a pretty old man in the book and Ruth has passed away. Throughout the book, Ida describes his life and how he met Ruth. He describes their life together and what happened after she died. He is describing all this stuck in his car. He got into a car accident while driving through the snow.

The other part of the book that mingles with Ida's story is the story of Sophia and Luke. Sophia is a college girl and Luke is a bull rider that is semi retired. Sophia meets Luke because he protects her from her pretty crappy ex boyfriend. Basically they get together and the story of Ida and Ruth collide.

This was a great book. To be honest, I preferred the story of Ida and Ruth. Ruth was such an easy character to love. He was so shy and awkward, you couldn't help but love him. You don't get to know much about Ruth but I have a feeling that if she was a more developed character, I would have liked her a lot. But I really enjoyed how she was in the story.

Sophia and Luke's story was okay. I felt like their relationship was really rushed. Because the relationship was rushed, I didn't really fall in love with the characters. I was basically waiting for the time when I would read about Ira.

The ending really cinched the whole book for me. I loved how the stories collided. It wasn't rushed or forced. It seemed entire natural that

Sophia and Luke would run into Ida as he was stranded on the road.

. I also loved that

Luke bought Ida's art collection which was worth a ton of money.

He really deserved that. Overall, just a really well written story.