Dear John

By Nicholas Sparks

I liked few other novels by Nicholas Sparks and so I picked this one. Well, it’s not as enjoyable as his other works like “The Choice” or “The Rescue”. As with any of his other books, this book also deals with human emotions, love, and tragedy. The book was painfully slow and you get irritated with every character save a little pity for John’s father.

John Tyree, an Army officer on a vacation at his hometown Wilmington, NC, enjoys surfing in the beautiful local beach. Love flickers in his otherwise monotonous life when he deep dives into the Sea to retrieve the purse of Savannah Lynn Curtis, a student who builds houses for the underprivileged. He’s a big, tattooed, army guy and she’s a happy student and a teetotaler. He spends much of his vacation with Savannah and her group of friends at a beach house. John is particularly impressed with Tim, Savannah’s close friend.

John’s father strikes us as a peculiar yet an adorable character—a man of practice, regularity and patience (especially with John). He’s too obsessed with his huge coin collection to discuss anything except his “Okays”. All attempts of John in involving his dad in a friendly chat end up futile.

After a couple of friendly meetings between Savannah and John’s dad, Savannah reveals John that his dad’s suffering from Autism. John deciding that she’s curious on his dad as a matter of subject gets furious and flee the place. En route the beach house, he knocks a guy and breaks Tim’s nose. Unexpectedly, they make up for their fights too easily and spend rest of John’s vacation happily.

As the story proceeds, John goes back to his work and Savannah keeps writing as she promised. He comes on a vacation and they again spend a good time. Then the September 11 comes and John reenlists in the army as per his consciousness. Savannah assures that she’s very proud of him followed by a “Dear John” letter announcing that she’s found another love.

John, now depressed and lonely concentrates much on his dad. It's then he feels a pang of guilt for not spending enough time and not understanding his problems. Of whatever Savannah did, she helped him understand his dad better. Again, the tragedy strikes when his dad suffers a heart attack and is bed ridden. After a series of convincing, cajoling and begging he’s taken to a hospital where he dies after seven weeks.

Distressed and left with no one to love him, he decides to meet Savannah, only to find her married. Savannah is no better than John as her husband is suffering from Melanoma and her brother in law has autism. Finally, along with John, we also understand what true love means.

To sum up, the story is quite boring except for some chapters involving John’s dad and his disease. I liked the ending though it may seem impractical. I think for a goody-goody girl like Savannah, it’s too soon to fall in love and end everything so soon. And John seems to have as big a heart as his massive body. The only character portrayed interestingly is John’s dad but alas, he has autism! It’s a light read, not really romantic.

Read it if you are in a vacation or you have all the time in the world.