well into her forties." Her favorite word is marvelous. Eric Hunter is Landon's best friend, who does more making fun, than being an actual friend. The popular jock at school, he starts out very crude, but when tragedy strikes his longtime friend, he shows that he is sympathetic. Eddie Jones is not well liked by the drama department. He was scheduled to play the main character in the play, but is demoted to the "bum" when Landon steps in. He is extremely apathetic. Mrs. Sullivan is a minor role. Described as "a wispy little thing", she died while giving birth to Jamie, and is greatly missed by Hegbert and Jamie. Margaret, a cheerleader, is Eric's girlfriend. Reception The novel was published in October 1999 in hardcover print, and later in paperback edition. It spent nearly six months in the best-seller list on hardcover, and an additional four months on paperback. The novel received mixed reviews from critics. The Sunday New York Post holds that it "never fails to be interesting, touching, at times riveting ... a book you won't soon forget". African Sun Times echoes the former's comments, saying, "A remarkable love story that, like its predecessors, will touch the hearts of readers everywhere." New York Daily News compliments Sparks, commenting that he "has written a sweet tale of young but everlasting love, and though he's told us to expect both joy and sadness, the tears will still come". Clarissa Cruz of Entertainment Weekly, however, panned the novel, saying, "With its cliche-riddled prose and plot twists that can be predicted after skimming the prologue, Nicholas Sparks' latest, A Walk To Remember, reads more like the script for a bad after-school special than anything approaching literature." Although the novel is number 12 on their list of 1999 Bestsellers Fiction, Publishers Weekly described it as "a forced coming of age story" and "the author's most simple, formulaic, and blatantly melodramatic package to date". Theresea Parks from Publishers Weekly goes on to say that many will be disappointed: "Readers may be frustrated with the invariable formula that Sparks seems to regurgitate with regularity". She also writes that it is especially similar to The Notebook in its "corny flashback device that mimics The Notebook". Overall, Publishers Weekly expressed its disappointment. Adaptation A Walk to Remember was adapted in the film of the same name, becoming Sparks' second novel adapted to the big screen after