Book 6 - The Longest Ride

 The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks

This novel was started on September 12, 2024, and finished on October 19, 2024; it was 398 pages. My dad, Hanson, chose this.

This was my first time reading this novel. I had trouble starting it, but I am an avid Sparks lover, so I gave it a chance. I absolutely loved the story of Ira and Ruth. I gave this book a personal rating of 5-stars.

Summary (SPOILERS!!!)

This is a story of two people from different sides of the track. Brought together by fate and destined for an amazing life together. Sophia meets Luke unexpectedly at a party, better yet a party after a rodeo. He breaks up a fight between her and her ex-boyfriend.

            They hit it off and Luke introduces her to ranch life and his world. All the while we are also introduced to Ira and Ruth. An older couple whose lives were just as full of love as Luke and Sophia. Their paths cross unexpectedly and change their lives forever.

            Ruth and Ira were married for over 50 years. They met as young adults and from that moment, Ira knew Ruth would be his wife. While serving in the military, Ira gets sick with the mumps, which leaves him unable to give Ruth the family that she always wanted. So, they relinquish that dream and go on living their lives. Ruth is an avid art lover, and they spend years visiting exhibits, meeting artists, and end up with an extensive art collection. Ruth is a schoolteacher, and Ira owns his family’s store. When Ruth dies Ira becomes depressed and becomes a “hermit.” The art collection goes into storage, except a few pieces he brings out. When an unknown visitor comes to his home, he begins making plans and gets his affairs in order. During their marriage, Ira wrote Ruth a letter every year, and it is then that he writes her one last letter and travels to their place, where he wants to read it to her. It is snowing, and Ira skids off the road, through a guardrail and down an embankment. He becomes trapped and Ruth starts to visit him while he is trapped, and he reminisces all their life together.

            As Luke and Sophia grow closer and their relationship begins to grow too, the truth of Luke’s bull-riding career comes to light. He was injured and near death riding a bull, Big Ugly Critter. Because of that injury, his mother mortgaged the ranch. Which is why he was coming out of retirement, literally risking his life. When Sophia learns this, she tells him it is over if he keeps riding. When he goes on the circuit again, he draws Big Ugly Critter. He returns to Sohpia and apologizes and vows to not ride anymore. Sophia forgives him and they start over, planning to go to an art auction in the coming weeks, and in the meantime, they go to the cabins and spend the weekend there. While they are leaving, they pass a place where someone drove off the road. They learn it is Ira, he tells Sophia about the letter to Ruth, and Luke works with rescue to help free Ira. Sophia and Luke decide to go to the hospital where they have Ira, and Sophia kept the letter he wrote to Ruth. Ira ass to see them and it’s then that he asks Sophia to read it like Ruth would. They leave and start back home again.

            While they plan their time together, they start to talk about the art auction. Sophia reads a news article about it, and they learn that the collection was from Ira and Ruth, and sadly, that Ira passed away the day after they found him. They go to the art auction as a tribute to Ira. The collection is organized in sections because of how big it is. The first painting is of Ruth, which Luke buys, and unbeknownst to him, he inherited the collection entirely. It was Ira’s wish that whoever bought the portrait of Ruth would inherit the collection and hopefully understand.

My Thoughts:

My heart soared for Ira and Ruth. Their story and journey through life together was what everyone may dream of. And Luke and Sophia seemed to be the incarnate, just coming together at a different time. I enjoyed this novel very much.

Favorite Quotes:

“Even though she’d attended every party, formal, and mandatory meeting, she couldn’t buy into the whole “sisterhood would change your life” ethos…”

 

“You became charming, once you were no longer afraid of me.”

 

“You kissed me, yes, but it was not just goodnight. Even then, I could feel the promise in it, the promise that you would kiss me just like that, forever.”

 

“He had a strange feeling that in the future, whenever he thought about her, this would be the image he recalled.”

 

“Like veterans everywhere, I wanted to put the war behind me… For the rest of my life, I carried wounds that no man could see, but were impossible to leave behind.”

 

“You do not see in yourself what others see in you.”

“Luke continued to hold her hand. Somehow, this simple gesture felt more significant than their earlier kisses, more permanent somehow.”

 

“He drew a deep breath, struggling to keep his emotions in check, knowing that he didn’t love her simply in the here and now, but that he would never stop loving her.”

 

“It was not the first kiss we’d ever shared, but in many ways it has become my favorite, if only because it happened when I needed it most, marking the beginning of one of the two most wonderful, and life-altering, periods of my life.”

 

“That’s the difference between family and friends. Family is always there, no matter what, even when it’s not right next door.”

 

“She wasn’t ready for that just yet, but she felt in those hungry last kisses the promise of a future that she could barely wait to begin.”

 

“It wasn’t like I came close to actually doing anything about it; it was more like a concept, something I latched on to, to feel better.”

 

“I understand that love and tragedy go hand in hand, for there can’t be one without the other, but nonetheless I find myself wondering whether the tradeoff is far.”

 

“It was time. I was growing old.”

 

“This will to live. But I have always been a survivor, a man who laughs in the face of death and spits in the eye of mother fate.”

 

“It was a silence underscored by loneliness and the knowledge that the good years are already in the past, coupled with the complications of old age itself.”

“A truth emerges in any long marriage and the truth is this: Our spouses sometimes know us better than we even know ourselves.”

 

“I imagine using red for your passion and pale blue for your kindness; forest green to reflect the depth of your empathy and bright yellow for your unflagging optimism.”

 

“If there is a heaven, we will find each other again, for there is no heaven without you.”

 

“But most of all, I hope you understand.”