The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks is a touching novel about a troubled teenager, Ronnie. Ronnie’s parents divorced when she was only 11-years old. Before the divorce, Ronnie and her father, Steve, were very close. The two would always play the piano together since Steve taught piano at Julliard. However, after the divorce their relationship ended, and Ronnie never spoke to her father again, but when Ronnie turned seventeen, she had to visit her father in North Carolina for the summer. In the beginning, Ronnie refused to speak to her father, but eventually became closer to him as the summer passed. In the story, Ronnie found love with a volleyball player, Will, discovered a few secrets, and reconnected with her family.

The Last Song is an incredible tale about love and family. The author uses many literary devices to show how much Ronnie changes as a person and reconnects with her family. This novel has many literary merits due to the wonderful usage of the literary devices: characterization, suspense, and mood.
Characterization is used frequently throughout the book. As a reader, it is easy to identify the emotional changes Ronnie undergoes, mostly expressed with her actions. For instance, most of the characters in the book initially thought of Ronnie as a tough character, but throughout the course of the novel, Ronnie’s softer facets are revealed. When Ronnie notices a nest of sea turtle eggs behind her father’s house, Ronnie camps outside well past nightfall to protect the sea turtle eggs from hungry. Also, at first Ronnie ignores her father and parties all night without so much as cluing him in as to her whereabouts. However, later on Ronnie starts to make an effort to reconnect with her father by sharing her emotions and thoughts with him, and trying to understand him.

Nicholas Sparks does an excellent job of creating suspense throughout the novel. One such example of suspense is demonstrated when Ronnie always thought about “the Incident”. Those two words added suspense very easily because the author waited until the end of the book to explain what “the Incident” was. During the book, it was hard not to wonder what Ronnie did that was so awful that she could not tell anyone about it. “The Incident” comes across as Ronnie’s deepest, darkest secret that she cannot share. This happens with Will, too. Whenever Nicholas Sparks writes from Will’s point of view, “the Accident” is usually mentioned. The suspense just builds from there.

Mood is another literary device that is used in the book. The mood of the novel starts off as very awkward, but then smoothes over to being very loving. At first, Ronnie does not want anything to do with her father, for she absolutely loathes him because he left Ronnie when she was so little. Nevertheless, as the book progresses, Ronnie’s love for her father deepens, and she even realizes that her father had always loved her. Will realizes how much Ronnie’s father really loves Ronnie when he sees the wall covering the piano that Ronnie detests. Even though Steve is in love with playing the piano, he decides to refrain from doing so because he knows Ronnie loathes the piano and he loves her too much to let her be unhappy.
The Last Song is once again, a moving novel about a daughter learning to love her father, as well as a man who is in love with her. This book has many literary merits because of how the author displays characterization, suspense, and mood. Because of the literary devices used in this story, the author is able to create an extremely remarkable novel.