"A Walk to Remember," the latest novel by Nicholas Sparks, is a touchingly sweet novel about first love and the road to adulthood that sometimes accompanies it. Sparks writes a lovely story about the simplicity of a new relationship between two teenagers and the difficult lessons that spark the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Landon Carter is a somewhat stereotypical teenager from the late 1950s. He is a small town troublemaker who finds pleasure in sneaking out late at night, soaping up car windows and "eating boiled peanuts in the graveyard" with his buddies. A senior in high school, Landon is determined to spend the year hanging out, applying to college and taking "blow off" classes like drama.

His father Worth Carter, heir to a large estate and plenty of money, is somewhat of a legend in the family's small town of Beaufort, N.C. Not only has he been a congressman for a number of years, but his father (Landon's grandfather) started a history of scandal and unrest in the town that the family has not fully lived down.

Jamie Sullivan is the daughter of the reverend at the Southern Baptist church that Landon and his family attend. She is the kind of girl that every adult adores and every teenager ridicules. She wears her hair in a bun and spends her lunch hours reading the Bible and her free time helping orphaned children, rather than socializing. She preaches from the Bible constantly and believes that everything that happens is part of "the Lord's plan."

Jamie's father, known in the town as Hegbert, not only has had a vendetta against Landon's family for years, but is one of the least liked men in town. Only Jamie, his personal angel and the only link left to his wife who passed away, redeems him.

The story follows Jamie and Landon, who have been in the same school since first grade. Although they have had a few conversations over the years, Jamie was never on Landon's "social calendar."

This year, though, she is in Landon's drama class. By the first day of school, she already has the lead role of the angel in the Christmas pageant because she's the reverend's daughter. Not only is Jamie the last person Landon expects to spend his senior year with, but in his eyes, she is also the least likely to be able to teach him a lesson about life and love.

It is almost fate when Jamie is the only girl Landon can find who doesn't already have a date to the homecoming dance, which he is required to attend as student body president. Reluctantly, Landon asks her to go with him, and thereby begins a series of events that will change his life forever.

In a novel rich with adolescent witticism and imprudence, Sparks continues to use love to weave together a story of passion, fate and emotional and personal growth, as he does in his previous novels ("The Notebook," "Message in a Bottle").

The recurring motif of romance and true love is Spark's trademark, and is only improved upon in his newest novel. His style, though simplistic in diction but appropriate for communicating the inner dialogue of a 17-year-old boy, unveils innocence and truth so fresh in first love that it opens a door into the mind and heart of Landon Carter, who is experiencing these feelings for the first time.

Although Landon's character lacks in sophistication and maturity initially, his character develops from a typical pretentious teenage façade into a genuine and true person who is no longer ashamed of his feelings.

Landon learns lessons about the inner workings of the symbolic human heart and realizes that even though people may appear to be different at first glance, a closer look will prove that everyone has the same feelings of fear, love and hope.

He also begins to understand why being a moral and loving person is so important to everyone and why Jamie seems to understand that. He begins to grow into the man that he will one day become, and never could have been without Jamie's influence.

"A Walk to Remember" is a captivating novel that makes clear the fragility and brilliance of naked emotion, especially, but not exclusively, in first love. It is fearless in its illustration of raw feelings so often present in adolescence. It is a novel that is pure, genuine and simple.

Although somewhat lacking in literary sophistication, just like Landon, Sparks writes a story that most will appreciate and all will relate to, because it elucidates the sweetness of life that so often is hidden by everyday triviality.

• ND alumnus takes a `Walk to Remember'
  
• Sparks' `Walk' debuts Thursday