Dear John

Hey guys, this is Clara and for this months’ blog post I will review the book Dear John by Nicholas Sparks, a book in the romance genre. I’ve never read a romance novel before, and after a friend recommended this book, I decided to give romance novels a try and read Dear John. 

            Dear John follows the story of John Tyree, a lonely young man who enlists in the U.S Army so he can have a purpose in life. While he is on leave from duty, he meets Savannah Lynn Curtis, and immediately is attracted to her. They begin dating, and eventually fall in love. However, while everything is going well in their relationship, the tragedy of 911 occurs. Because of this event, John has to decide between his loyalty to his country or his love for Savannah, and either go back into active duty or stay with Savannah. He decides to go back into active duty, and the rest of the book focuses on how their long-distance relationship falls apart. 

            I have mixed feelings about this book, as I liked some aspects of the writing but did not enjoy other parts, making Dear John a merely average read for me. The facets of the novel that stood out to me in a positive light were the writing style and the realistic themes. When the story was narrated by John, he felt like a real person. His inner thoughts made his character come to life, and it was interesting to watch him describe the world around from coming from his particular mindset. As for the themes of the story, I appreciated how the author included topics that may not have the biggest shock factor but represented real struggles and stressors in an individuals’ life. An example of this realistic topic usage is when John finds out that his father has Asperger’s and struggles to come to terms with how that affected his childhood.

            However, the realism of this story that I enjoyed also created the problems for the book that made it a novel of middling quality. Though the plot had some interesting aspects included in it, it was slow-moving and boring. I was never riveted while reading this book, and I just was waiting for the plot to pick up. The ending of the novel does not help either, as it is just anticlimactic and sad. I understand that Savannah and John breaking up by the end of the story fits into the books’ theme of being incredibly realistic, but it just left me feeling empty, and I wondered why the story had any importance, as the relationship of John and Savannah becomes meaningless by the end of the book.