11 Biggest Changes The Notebook Makes To The 1996 Book

The 2004 romance drama The Notebook brought Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 novel of the same name to the big screen, but the film adaptation made some key changes to the book. The Notebook tells the story of two teenagers, Noah (Ryan Gosling) and Allie (Rachel McAdams), from different socioeconomic backgrounds who share a summer romance in 1940, and later reunite after years apart. At a nursing home in the present, an elderly man named Duke (James Garner) reads the story aloud from a notebook to a woman with dementia (Gena Rowlands), who are later revealed to be Noah and Allie.

The Notebook launched Gosling and McAdams into stardom and quickly became one of the most iconic romance movies of all time. Directed by Nick Cassavetes and adapted for the screen by Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi, the film includes some minor differences from the book, like Allie’s hair and eye color and last name, and the name of the fictional North Carolina town where The Notebook takes place (New Bern becomes Seabrook). However, the movie also makes major changes to things like the narrative structure, certain details and events, and, most notably, the ending of The Notebook.

11 The Notebook Movie Changes The Narrative Structure Of The Book

Duke’s story starts with Noah and Allie as adults in the book

The Notebook movie and book both open at the nursing home in the present day, where an elderly Noah goes by Duke to avoid confusing Allie. “Duke” begins reading the story from the notebook to Allie (though she is not identified yet) that she’s heard many times. In the book, Duke’s story begins when Noah is already 31 years old and almost finished restoring the Windsor Plantation house. Noah and Allie’s first summer together and years apart are only revealed through their own memories and recollections to each other.

However, in The Notebook movie, Duke’s story begins on the night of the carnival on June 6, 1940, when Noah and Allie first met as teenagers while her family was in town for the summer. From there, it continues in chronological order, with interjections to the present to show Allie’s reactions to the story, Duke’s doctor’s appointment, and their children’s visit. The movie jumps between the past and present while Duke is telling the story, but the book doesn’t return to the present until his story is over.

10 The Notebook Movie Shows A Lot More Of Noah & Allie’s Early Relationship

The book summarizes their summer together instead of showing it play out

Because Duke’s story starts with Noah and Allie as adults and only reveals details of the years in retrospect, the book hardly depicts their initial relationship as teenagers. As Noah reflects on his past, the narrator simply summarizes the events of the summer of 1932 (not 1940, like in the movie) when they first fell in love. More details are revealed as they reminisce together, but it doesn’t give as full a picture of their young love and focuses much more on their reunion.

The Notebook movie actually shows the inception of Noah and Allie’s relationship and depicts their romance blossoming by adding a bunch of new scenes, including a montage of their summer together. Iconic moments like Noah hanging from the Ferris wheel and the two of them laying down and dancing in the street do not originally appear in the book. In addition, memorable lines like, “you just tell me what you want and I’ll be that for you,” “if you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” and “get in the water!” were written for the movie.

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9 Noah And Allie Don’t Have Sex With Each Other Until They’re Adults In The Notebook Movie

In the book, they lose their virginities to each other as teenagers

In the book, it is revealed that Noah and Allie lost their virginities to each other as teenagers when Noah brought Allie to the abandoned house (that he later restores). This same scene occurs in the movie, except they don’t quite get that far. They take off their clothes and almost have sex, but Allie starts getting in her head and keeps asking Noah a bunch of questions. They start to kiss again but get interrupted by Noah’s friend Fin, who tells them that Allie’s panicked parents are have sent the police out to look for her.

They don’t get another opportunity to have sex again until they reunite years later as adults. In The Notebook movie, Noah and Allie’s first time having sex is a much bigger deal because they waited so long, so it’s more of a culmination of their lingering feelings for each other. However, before they have sex as adults in the book, Allie tells Noah he’s still the only man she’s ever been with sexually, including her fiancé, Lon.

8 Noah & Allie Get In A Fight Before She Leaves Town & Don’t Get To Say Goodbye In The Notebook Movie

Noah doesn’t find out Allie left town until after she’s gone

Noah and Allie’s parting is much more dramatic in The Notebook movie. In the book, Allie simply leaves at the end of the summer as planned, and Noah watches her go without a fight. However, onscreen, the couple get in a fight after Noah hears Allie’s parents forbidding her from seeing him anymore because he’s lower class. Allie refuses to obey their orders and runs after Noah. They don’t officially break up, but they end on bad terms.

The next morning, Allie’s parents tell her they’re leaving town early. She goes to the lumberyard to say goodbye to Noah, but he’s not there. She asks Fin to tell Noah that she loves him and she’s sorry, but Fin believes it’s over and tells her to “let it go.” Upon his return, Noah finds out Allie left and rushes to her house, hoping to catch her, but she’s already gone. They are forced to leave things unresolved for years in The Notebook movie, which creates a lot more tension when they reunite.

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7 Noah Acquires The Money To Restore The House Differently In The Notebook Movie

Noah’s dad doesn’t give him the money to buy the house in the book

In the book, when Noah first moves to New Jersey (not Atlanta, like in the movie), he gets a job at a scrapyard separating scrap metal for a company owned by a man named Mr. Goldman. He ends up working for Mr. Goldman for eight years, during which he got promoted and started “running the entire operation.” After the war starts and Noah enlists in the army, Mr. Goldman gives him a small percentage share of the scrapyard to thank him for his hard work.

After Goldman dies, Noah receives a check for $70,000 which he uses to buy and restore the Windsor Plantation house. However, in The Notebook movie, upon Noah’s return from the war, his father tells him he sold his house and gives Noah the money from the sale to buy his dream house. Along with his GI bill, Noah’s able to get a loan from the bank to purchase and fix up the house just how Allie described it when they were young.

6 Noah Never Tries To Look For Allie During Their Years Apart In The Notebook Movie

He does see her on the street, though, which doesn’t happen in the book

In the book, three years after sending his last letter, Noah decides to go to Winston-Salem (not Charleston, like in the movie) where Allie’s parents lived to try to find her. He discovers that her father left his firm and they moved someplace else, and there was no forwarding address where he could contact her. After that, he never tries to look for her again.

In The Notebook movie, Noah never goes looking for Allie after she leaves town that summer. However, after buying the house, he does see her walking on the street while he’s in Charleston to get his building plans approved. He sprints off the bus to go find her and sees her kissing Lon through a restaurant window. This moment does not occur in the book, and Noah doesn’t find out about Lon until Allie tells him during her visit.

5 Noah’s Friend Gus and Dog Clem Do Not Appear In The Notebook Movie

These two characters from the book were removed from the movie

In the book, adult Noah has a three-legged hound dog named Clementine, or “Clem,” who keeps him company. Noah also describes Gus, “a seventy-year-old Black man who live[s] down the road,” as his “best friend these days” in the book. Gus has four children and eleven grandchildren and comes over a couple of nights a week to have a drink and chat with Noah, who’s “come to regard [Gus] as family.” Neither Clem nor Gus appear in The Notebook movie at all.

4 The Notebook Movie’s Famous Rain Scene Combines Two Scenes From The Book

The letter reveal and rainstorm are two separate scenes in the book

One of the most iconic scenes in TheNotebook movie is when Allie confronts Noah in the rain about why he didn’t write her after she left. He tells her, “I wrote you 365 letters. I wrote you every day for a year,” and that it “still isn’t over.” Realizing that neither one ever stopped loving the other, they passionately kiss and go inside to make love for the first time. This moment is a lot more significant in the movie because of how they left things.

This dramatic scene in The Notebook movie actually combines two separate scenes from the book, neither of which is as intense. Noah brings up the letters in the book, pointing out that Allie never answered any of them. When she’s surprised that he wrote her, he informs her that he wrote her “dozens” of letters (not 365) “once a month” (not every day) over “two years” (not just one), but never got a reply. Allie realizes her mother must’ve hidden them as Noah suspected, but in the movie, this isn’t confirmed until she confronts her mother about it.

In a later scene in the book, they get caught in the rain and run inside to change into dry clothes and sit by the fire. Allie reveals she wrote letters to him, too, but never sent them. They do end up sleeping together after this, but it doesn’t happen right away like it does in the movie.

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3 Noah & Allie Only Have Three Children In The Notebook Movie

They have five kids in the book, one of whom passed away

In The Notebook movie, Noah and Allie’s three adult children, Mary Allen, Maggie, and Edmond, and two of their grandchildren, Davanee and Noah Jr., come to visit them at the nursing home. They try to convince their dad to come home, but he insists on living at the facility with Allie. In the book, Noah and Allie have five children in total, but one of their sons died at only four years old. Their other four children are named Kate, Jane, David, and Jeff. It’s mentioned in the book that they do visit, but this is never shown.

2 The Notebook Movie Doesn’t Show Allie’s Alzheimer’s Diagnosis & Journey

It is also never specified that Allie’s form of dementia is Alzheimer’s

What drives the frame story in both The Notebook movie and book is Duke’s commitment to getting Allie to remember who they are, which is why he reads their life story to her every day. In the book, Duke only contextualizes Allie’s Alzheimer’s disease for the reader after he finishes telling the story and Allie asks him who he is. Alternating between the past and present, he recounts for the reader when she started showing signs of the disease and reveals moments of their life together before and after her diagnosis through memories and letters they wrote to each other.

Because The Notebook movie switches between the past and present while Duke is still telling the story, Allie’s dementia is revealed to the viewer before he finishes telling it. However, it is not specified that she has Alzheimer’s. When the story is finally over and she asks him who Allie chose in the end, the movie flashes back one last time to show that Allie left Lon and chose Noah.

Duke doesn’t tell her this, though, and it’s then that she briefly remembers who he is and that this is their story. After she forgets him again, Duke looks through photos of them over the years. Beyond these photos, The Notebook movie never shows Noah and Allie’s life together after she chose him over Lon, including her diagnosis and the years afterward.

1 Noah & Allie Die At The End Of The Notebook Movie

The movie makes a major change to the book’s ending

Possibly the biggest change The Notebook movie makes to the book is how it ends. After Allie forgets Noah again after briefly remembering him, the book ends with Duke/Noah sneaking into Allie’s room. They share a romantic moment together as Allie miraculously remembers him again immediately upon waking up. While he is aware that neither of them has much time left, they are both still alive by the end of the book.

While there is an alternate ending of The Notebook on some streaming services, in the original version, Noah and Allie die in each other’s arms at the end of The Notebook movie after promising to “go“ together. A nurse finds their embracing bodies and her reaction indicates that they’ve passed on together. By changing Noah and Allie’s fate, The Notebook movie gives their story a different kind of closure.