The Last Song - By: Sabrina Tavares

Weekly Summary 1 (chapters 1-12)
By: Sabrina Tavares
Book: The Last Song

Plot: brief description
The book begins immediately with a flashback (6 months earlier). The first chapter describes Ronnie’s trip to her dad for the summer which she describes as “southern armpit of a place”. Ronnie and her brother, Jonah haven’t seen their dad in 3 years. Their parents are divorced, although it is not explained why.

Themes:
The whole book is an entire flashback of Ronnie’s summer. Before I even started to read the novel I started to analyze the cover and title of the book. The musical notes on the cover seen to have a connection with the title “The Last Song”. My first thought was a piano because it looks like a sheet of music someone would use to play the piano. Also on the cover are turtles on a beach, which has no connection with the musical notes. This must be another theme in the story. Later, as a continued reading I noticed that the word “piano” kept repeating itself at almost each chapter and sometimes more in the same chapter. Ronnie’s dad, Steve, has a special attachment to this piano and it seems like Ronnie used to have one too “I don’t care how much you want me to play! I’m never going to play the piano again! Especially not for you” (p.65)
  * Ronnie’s Maturation: At the beginning of the book Ronnie is a very realistic and typical teenager who complains about anything and everything that isn’t done her way. She seems to be a very immature teenager with bad habits (hanging out with bad people, making bad friends, robbery, not respecting the rules, never listening to her parents). Ronnie seems to mention often that she wishes her mom would have conceived three months earlier so she could be 18 and make her own decisions. Although, if her mom would have conceived 3 months earlier she would have been even younger, this proves that Ronnie thinks she has everything figured out which she doesn’t. She thinks that no one can talk to her, explain things to...