DEAR JOHN by Nicholas Sparks

Some people get sick of Nicholas Sparks’ books after reading a few of them, but I am not one of them. Before I managed to get my hands on a copy of Dear John, i wondered what the book would be like, if it would be similiar to anything like Message in a Bottle or The Notebook or even (my personal favourite) A walk to Remember. I wondered if it would be a replica of something that he has already written. By the time I reached the end of the book though, Dear John surprised me.

Boy meets girl. They fall in love and then they live happily ever after- or not. As the story unfolds, it might seem like the book might end up being a sappy romantic novel or a cliche. But what sets it different from most books is that the protagonist, John, does mention that his story has a beginning, a middle and a definate ending- an ending that doesn’t have forever in mind.

Is love enough to wait a few years for a person? If love wasn’t enough, does that mean that the love for that person disappears? Is it true love even though you spent just four weeks out of one hundred and four weeks physically together with the one you love?

At a time where I am losing faith in the idea of true love, this book helped to reinstate a little of that faith I used to have. It reassured me that love, like what I initially believed, can be sustained through hand written letters – that love, can even grow deeper because of letters.

This book is also about choices. It showed me that being in love with someone doesn’t mean that you would be with that person forever. Making that commitment, is a choice. This book is about choices, and how the simplest of decisions can either wreak lives or save lives.

This book is a must for every romantic, every believer in true love and everyone who has had their heart broken. This book is for all the ‘Johns’ and ‘Savannahs’ out there. This book is for everyone who has that one special person who has a permanent spot in your heart even though, in paper, you might be married to someone else.