Picked up at a thrift store. I enjoyed the movie. In my TBR pile.

Amazon review: If you thought The Notebook was a tearjerker, get out the hankies, pull up a chair, and get ready to have your heart monkey-wrenched by Nicholas Sparks's second star-crossed love story, Message in a Bottle. When Theresa Osborne takes a much-needed summer holiday at Cape Cod, she finds a lot more than a break from the hustle and bustle. On an early-morning jog along Cape Cod Bay, she comes across a corked bottle with a scrolled-up message inside that reads, "My Dearest Catherine, I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together..." It bobbles around in the same vein for several more paragraphs and ends with "...am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry. Garret."
Garret may eat quiche, but no bother--before you can say "Look! I found two more letters!" Theresa is hot on his trail and determined to find this mysterious yet sensitive message-in-a-bottle man. She finds him at a sleepy North Carolina port, working on his beloved sailboat, The Happenstance. From there, a romance buds and blossoms into a colorful bouquet of emotional baggage. Theresa has problems with her past--or, more accurately, her past is a problem. She is so scarred from her "I'm a super churchgoing guy now that I've run out on my wife" ex-husband that she hasn't tried to date since her divorce some three or four years before. And who is Catherine? And what's Garret's bag, anyway? When Theresa finds out, she plunges to the depths of her soul and uncorks a whopper of a secret about herself, bringing Garret to terms with who he really is.

Message in a Bottle has the earmarks of sentimental tongue-wagging at its finest and should please romantics and cynics alike--it's sure to bring romantics to their knees, while cynics will be slapping theirs in laughter.

I have started a book ring with Message in a Bottle and it is in the mail today to the first participant! Here is the order:

1. Ben-Nevis
2. Pinkrosymolly
3. ms-attitude-ca
4. AceofHearts

Then back to casseytara!

If anyone has any issues with the order, please let me know and I’ll try to rearrange! I will leave this ring open in the event someone wants to join at a later date and be added to the end of the list.

When you are ready to send the book on, PM the next person on the list to get their address. If they don’t respond within a week or so, let me know, and we can move their name down the list and go to the next person.

Enjoy everyone!

I have just received it. It enjoyed the journey and seems to be fine. I will start reading it soon.

Update 12.Sep.2004
Ok I should have had a closer look before registering for the bookring, but that is life.

The story is quite shallow and simple. Nothing really unexpected happens, The characters are flat there is the business woman, single parent, hard working, betrayed form her husband and the seaman, wild, good looking, handsome and betrayed from life as his beloved woman died much too early. The language is relatively simple and I missed the nice little stories around the big one that make a book really exiting. Saying this I have to admit that it got a grip on me, once I had started I could not stop, and it was not just to make sure it would end the way I expected.

Received in the mail today. Thankyou!!

I enjoyed this book even though the plot was a bit predictable except for the ending that came like a bolt from the blue and made the whole book come together. I did find the beginning a bit confusing as i was unsure if i was reading a stry from the past present or future but it all becomes clear in the end. To be passed along the bookring!!!

RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to ms-attitude-ca as part of book ring.

this book arrived in the mail today

This is the first book by Nicholas Sparks that I have read and it certainly won't be the last. This is a wonderful story about love lost and new love found. This is a book for true romantics at heart. Next in line to read this is AceofHearts

just dropped this off at AceofHearts.....I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did

received with thanks

Yes the story is a bit predictable but the ending sure isn't. I have now officially cleared my tear ducts. This is the second Nicolas Sparks book that I have read. I really enjoyed both. why does nobody tell the truth up front?
Thanks Casseytara for the Read
Mailing tomorrow

Arrived home safely yesterday! Thanks to everyone who participated! All your reviews have me eager to read it myself! So back in my TBR pile it goes!

Eucalia's ring for this same book has gone astray, so I offered her this copy to finish her ring. I decided to go ahead and read it over the weekend so it wouldn't have to worry about finding it's way back to me again. I enjoyed it, and I want to see the movie again now! I was a little surprised by the ending, I hadn't seen the movie in such a long time I didn't remember it ending the way it did! While Nicholas Sparks isn't a writer of the finest caliber, he does know how to create a good storyline. At one point though, I did think, imagine if Anita Shreve or Alice Hoffman had taken this plot and weaved a story around it! But all in all, it was a good, quick, read that definitely stirs the emotions.

Now it's on to the next person in Eucalia's ring, Bunnybee!

This arrived sometime while I was out of town- what a nice welcome home, to find some books waiting for me!

It goes on the bookring TBR behind a few others, but will probably get tucked in among the series bookrings that I have, just so it won't get bogged down. I loved this movie, despite its sad ending... we'll see if I like the book or not as well!

Thank you Eucalia, for the ring! And thank you Aramena- for replacing the bookring book so it can continue! And here are the other names left on the list after me:

~ AceofHearts (Ontario) anywhere (already read this!)
~ outofreach (Australia) anywhere

The other book for the previous entries for the bookring started by Eucalia.

*** Update: started on this 3/25

Just finished this last night. I'd have to say that I've seen the movie several times, and although it's not a happy movie, it's also one that I'd see over and over when I'm in the mood for a romantic but sad movie. And so my thoughts and expectations were a bit tainted as I read this book, and found out just how different the events were from the movie. I think I like the movie version better (usually it's the other way around!) because it involved more conflict with family as Garrett dealt with Catherine's death- and that kind of added more to the book's version where he was kind of dealing with it all more within himself.

Still, it was nice to read a romance that wasn't just centered around how many sexual encounters they could fit in. ;-)

Will be mailing it off today to outofreach in Australia, since AceofHearts has already read it.

this book arrived in today's mail. i probably will start reading it tomorrow since i have to finish the book i'm currently reading first.

i found the whole book a little conservative and like many of the others said, predictable. it is hard for me to imagine someone leading a life as both of the protagonists do. what bothered me most was how theresa was treating her 12 year old son. it sounded to me more like paying attention to an infant than to a twelve year old. i don't know how guys are at that age but i was far from needing 24/7 attention and so on.

anyway. thank you aramena for organizing this bookring even that i had to figure out that i'm not a huge fan of nicholas sparks. i'm sure there are a lot of other people out there who would really enjoy this book.

this book will go out as a ray again. please pm me to join.

cadelagarza - usa - int
xallroyx - usa - int
deesse - france - int
cosminx - australia - int!?
ann-718my - malaysia - asia

the book is now on its way to cadelagarza.
enjoy...

Got this book in the mail today! :) I'll get to it after I finish reading the book I'm recently reading.

This book is very predictable and unfortunately, not close to being a favorite of mine by Sparks. It's a pretty quick and easy read though.

Hope the next reader enjoys it more then me.

I'll send this off to xallroyx as soon as I get an address.

got today as part of a bookring

This was not as good as other Sparks books I have read. I cried all through the others and this one didn't hit me until the very end. It was a fast, easy read. It was similar to the movie from what I remember. It will be off to the next person when I get an address.

RELEASE NOTES:

sent to another bookcrosser as part of bookring!

It has arrived safely last Friday. Thank you everyone for passing it on!

... and it did make me cry! - like the first of his novels which I read (A Walk to remember).

Sometimes it made me think "Come on, you two, it can't be that difficult to work it out, you love each other, don't you?" but then I was simply unable to think anymore (since the part where he goes out on his boat...) At the same time the message given by this book was very beautiful and somehow "soothing".

Thank you, outofreach, for sharing this with me and thanks everyone for passing it on!

It'll go out to cosminx this afternoon (sorry, not by air mail!)

arrived safe and sound this afternoon - thanks deesse for sending it, and aramena for organising this ring! i've read this one before, and cried like a baby in parts. it's very sentimental and not usually the kind of book i like to read, but i enjoyed it so much that i should really buy a copy of my own. i'll read it as soon as i'm finished my current library book.

i liked "message in a bottle" far more than sparks' other stuff (the ending of "the notebook" spoiled the whole story for me!!) i guess the thing that stays with me is that he doesn't make either garrett or theresa solely responsible for messing things up - both characters come with a certain amount of baggage that they think they'll never escape, so when things go pear-shaped, i didn't think it was all one person's fault.

while i enjoyed the love story, i found the friendships the most inspiring - theresa and deanna, garrett and jeb, and theresa and kevin. sparks wrote these pivotal relationships with such care that it was impossible for me not to believe in them!

i sent this off to ann-718my in malaysia this afternoon - it should arrive in about a week. thanks again for sharing this book with me... it was like visiting with much-loved friends i don't see all that often :)

woohoo!! the book has arrived (thanks cosminx)! it looks old and very second-hand ;) but the pages are still intact, considering the places it has been to.

it's on my tbr now. i'd like to thank outofreach for restarting the ray and of course aramena for putting the book to existence in our BX world

after reading all the reviews by fellow bookcrossers here, i can't wait to start crying myself...hehe

UPDATE (Oct 19): i couldn't find the time to read this duw to my sudden piles of work! how sad. i really want to read this. but then suddenly a rabck from sabeena29 arrived. now i have 2 copies of this book. maybe i'll trade this or pass it on to someone who has it on his/her wishlist.