Nicholas Sparks has become one of my favorite authors, simply because his stories seem so real. They aren’t that hot and heavy romance, but actually stories that some might be able to relate to in real life. Dear John was such a book. I’m sure that there are a lot of people that could relate to falling in love and having their love go off to armed forces.
As with most of Sparks stories, Dear John begins in the present and we are taken back into the past by the main character who tells his/her story. It’s 2006 in Lenoir when John Tyree finds himself in the hills above Savannah’s ranch. He would have spent the rest of his life with her but due to the restraints of the army, they grew apart. Or were they ever truly in love at all? Now he just sits on the hillside, hoping to get a glimpse of her when she emerges from the house.
John Tyree and Savannah Lynn Curtis first met in Wilmington in the year 2000 when they were 21 and 23 respectively. John grew up in Wilmington, raised by his father. John has never met his mother due to the fact that she had run off when he was little. He thinks is father is odd and cold towards him despite them being the only one’s in the home. His father’s only real interest seemed to be the coins he collected. As John grew up he began to loose interest in coin collecting, thus the gap between he and his father spread. He began not to care about anything, hanging out with the wrong crowd and failing school. He never applied to college and worked a lot of different jobs and went through different woman like it was nothing. He got the idea to join the military one night while drinking because he was tired of his life. He enlists in the army at the age of 20 and joined Infantry after boot camp.
He is on leave in June of 2000 and heads home to visit with his father. It’s at the beach, while surfing, that he meets Savannah by jumping into the ocean to retrieve her bag that had fallen from the pier railing. She is so grateful she invites him to her groups’ barbecue. It seems Savannah and a group of kids from her school are volunteering for the summer with the Habitat for Humanity and have rented out a beach house. It takes off from there. They begin spending more time together, both knowing that eventually John will have to head back to base in Germany.
Dear John was one of those books where you hoped everything ended well but knew it just wouldn’t. There are other circumstances that cause John to end up on the hill above Savannah’s ranch, alone. Will they eventually get back together? Or is there something else that is really keeping them apart?
I have to say that as with Sparks other books, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. There are some slow parts where Sparks has to explain some things but you can get through them without wanting to put the book down. I do have to say that I did figure out things before they were actually explained, so the twists are really obvious. But I don’t feel that it took anything away from the story.
The John Tyree character was excellently written and seemed to have a lot more yet that needed to be explained about this character, yet Sparks was able to include just what he wanted and let the reader infer the rest. He is a character that has fought for a lot, in his own personal life and his professional life. The Savannah character was also a great character and one that seemed to have a lot of character, not something you find in girls her age, but Sparks made it work. She is a thoughtful character that never seems to take a moment for herself, except for those she spends with John.
Dear John is written in first person and doesn’t bring anything cheery to the table. It’s a story about two strong people who find love and heartache. They find peace and forgiveness. The character’s togetherness and also their time apart bring a somewhat somber mood to the story. You can read the first chapter and know what will happen in the end, but you still want to read the rest of the book to just discover the why. It’s a romance but there are many other aspects fused into the storyline, this makes Sparks seem a thoughtful romantic writer and not just all about the sex and lust between the characters.
There is only one aspect about this book that I didn’t care for and it was the fact that it took place over an overly long period of time. There isn’t anything else for me to complain about. Some may find it a little harder to read straight through due to the somber setting but I didn’t have a problem.
I’ve read a few Nicholas Sparks stories over the past few years, but this one seems to stand out as one of my new favorite’s.
An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams,...More at Buy.com
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