I enjoyed this novel whose theme is domestic violence as much as one could on the topic. It begins rather innocuously, but is a real page turner by the end. Nicholas Sparks does a fairly good job getting inside the heads of both husband and wife while clearly contrasting it as well with a healthier, stable relationship going forward. I would have given this book four stars but an unnecessary and unrealistic turn of events in the last four pages knocked it down to three stars for me. This is an important topic that doesn’t get much constructive play in fiction, and there are women out there that need to hear that they can get out and move on.