Dear John by Nicholas Sparks

While it didn't touch me the way in which The Notebook did, Dear John remains an engaging and moving story. John Tyree is a young man who comes across as a bit rough around the edges. After realising his life is heading nowhere fast, he joins the army in an attempt to get back on track. It is while he is back home on leave visiting his father than he meets Savannah and falls in love. These two characters are total opposites in both personality and life experience but their connection is still convincing. John returns to the army to finish his tour, promising Savannah that he won't re-enlist when his time is up. But then 9/11 happens, everything changes and John makes the decision to re-enlist. It's no surprise given the title of the book, that John is soon the recipient of the famed "Dear John" letter. (If you aren't familiar with the concept of the "Dear John" letter, it is the generic term used to refer to a letter which a woman writes to her partner while he is away, originally while at a battle front, in order to break things off.) Despite the title making it obvious from the outset that their relationship is doomed, there are still plenty of revelations throughout the story to surprise the reader and keep you thoroughly engaged. The character Savannah did tend to annoy me somewhat simply because she seemed too good to be true. I found the ending to be a tad farfetched but at the same time I don't think any other ending would have been any more believable. Dear John is a love story but I believe that John's character is what sets this story apart. There is a gritty rawness to him that lends itself to the narrative and perfectly counteracts "golden girl" Savannah. Because it is John that narrates the story, the sugar sweetness of Savannah is a little more palatable. There is a sadness and a sense of melancholy that pervades this text but it isn't a dark tale despite several potentially depressing themes being dealt with, 9/11 being just one. I did enjoy the book very much, it wasn't The Notebook by any means but Dear John endeared itself to me all the same.

Bri