The+Lucky+One+by+Nicholas+Sparks+-+Lilly,+Jess,+Delaney

__The Lucky One__ is a romance novel by Nicholas Sparks. We as a group tend to enjoy a good story about tender romance and charming men. From the summaries we've read, __The Lucky One__, qualifies as good-enough for our picky tastes in books. A review said, "I must say that despite its flaws, this book made for some pleasant reading. So don't pick it up expecting something earth-shaking (unless you're a Sparks fan, in which case my words won't matter to you). But if you pick it up looking for a light read with a dash of mystery, a splash of action and some tender romance, then you're in for a treat. I wouldn't classify this book as a tear-jerker, but emotional readers might want to keep a tissue or two handy." We're looking forward to this "dash of mystery, splash of action and tender romance."

 review- http://abookbloggersdiary.blogspot.com/2008/09/review-lucky-one-by-nicholas-sparks.html  __**APPROVED**__

Week 1:
A - Lily B/C - Jess D - Questions


 * Week 1 - Characters:**
 * __Clayton__- Police officer. Dad is head of the police force in Hampton. Didn't go to collage. Was married to Beth, but they got a divorce after a very short marriage of only 9 months. Has a son, Ben that did not turn out the way he wanted him to. Sleeps around with random women to get over his ex.**
 * __Thibault__- Was in the Marine Corps. Thought he would follow in his fathers footsteps and spend his entire life in the Marines, but then he found a picture on the battle feild. He made it his life goal to find the girl in the picture.**
 * __Beth__- Mother of Ben and ex-wife of Clayton. Just wants her son to be happy. Is the woman in the picture that Thibault is caring around.**
 * __Ben__- Son of Beth and Clayton. His father wants him to play soccer, but Ben would rather play violin. His father is never satisfied in him.**

Discussion Questions: How do the characters all connect? Why does Thibault think the picture is lucky? How does Thibault plan on finding the girl in the picture?

Meeting Notes: We discussed the main characters in the book. We figured out how all of the different characters connect. Clayton pulled over Thaibaut. He thought that Thaibaut took the camera he was using to take pictures of nude collage students. Thaibult was going to Hampton looking for a woman he found in a picture. That woman turned out to be Clayton's ex wife, Beth. Beth was complaining about her ex husband not looking after her son properly. Clayton thought that he was doing a fine job whenever he had to look after Ben. We have read 1/5 of the book, and we like it so far.

Week 2 - Language A - Jess B/C - Delaney D - Lily

Discussion Questions: What did the E on the picture stand for? Who did the picture originally belong to? Why does Thibault go into the kennel?

Meeting Notes: We talked about how good looking Thibault was. Jess thinks that he is very attractive. Delaney thinks he looks like a hobo. We talked about how Beth's real name was Elizabeth, and the picture belonged to her brother and he was the only one who called her Elizabeth. We talked about how the chapters alternate between characters and focuses on different people each chapter. Jess really likes the book, Delaney thinks it's okay, and Lily doesn't like it too much.

Topic: Language** (Section 2 out of 5 of your text) A- Lily B/C- Jess D- Delaney
 * Week Two: March 6
 * Assignment:**
 * 1) On your group's wiki page, discuss the type of language that your book contains. Is it easy to read? Conversational? "Classic"? Does it use a lot of words you don't understand? What grade level do you think the book is written at, and why?
 * 2) ANSWER: Yes this book is easy to read. There is not too much dialogue in the Thibault chapters, because he is thinking about the years he spent in the marines. When thibault talks to beth, there conversations are easy to understand and they do not use big words. It is not very "Classic" dialogue. They use every day words that are comprehendible. We think this book is written from age 16 to age 40. This book has a very wide range of audiences.
 * Week Three: March 13

Week Three: March 13 Discussion Questions: Do you think Beth and Thibault will get together? Why is Thaibault so nice to Ben? Why did Clayton leave when Thibault threatened him?

Meeting notes: We discussed the relationship between Beth and Thaibult. We think that they are going to get together. Beth is concerned about the men in her life being nice to her son, but Thaibult is very nice to Ben, so she doesn't have to worry about that. Beth is concerned about things being awkward at work if they break up. Beth doesn't want her grandmother to have to work alone at the kennel, so she does not want to jeopardize her employee. Although Beth has all of these doubts, Thibault traveled across the counrty to find her, so we think he is going to try to get together with her.

A- Jess B/C- Delaney D- Lily

Week 4: March 20 Questions- Who do you think broke into Thibault's house? What were they looking for? Do you think Beth knew Clayton was driving away the other men?

Meeting notes: We talked about how much we don't like the book. It is very long and boring. Nothing had happened. Its been the same from page 50 to page 250. Nothing is going on. It sucks. Nothing is going on. There is just 200 pages of filler. We chose this book because we thought it would be good because Nicholas Sparks is a good writer. He wrote The Notebook and other good books, so we thought it would be good, but it is not. We are very disappointed in this book. The symbol in this story is the picture. Thibault found the picture and that is what brought him to Hampton and when he met Beth and Ben. The picture brought him lucky and kept him alive when at war. When he passed the picture on to Ben, be felt an incompleteness. After he passed the picture on, he was afraid that he was going to fall off of the bridge. We knew that the picture did not bring him lucky, it was the illusion of having to find Beth.

Week 5: March 27 Questions- Was the picture lucky for Ben? Was anything different for Thibault without the picture? Do you think Thibault and Beth were destined to be together?

Meeting notes: We did not like this book. It was very long and drawn out. The author did not leave anything to the readers imagination. We would have liked it if it was about half the length that it is now. The story line was good, but the book did not need to be so in detail. We would not recommend this book to others, unless they want a long boring book. There were no major events that took place after the first 3 chapters. If we had to recommend this book, we would recommend it to an older age group. We feel this book would be more suitable for an older age group.**