Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Dear John

Dear John
Dear John
Author: Nicholas Sparks
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Hardcover
pogosmith avatar reviewed on + 20 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2


Having enjoyed the movies from "Message in a Bottle" and "Notebook", I anticipated a pleasant, but possibly sad read. I have been somewhat disappointed. I have a hard time relating to the story and to the characters. Savannah is a too-good-to-be-true graduating senior from UNC. She is beautiful, thoughtful, articulate, avid Christian, athletic, enthusiastic, playful and much more. She is saving her self, in the personal intimate ways, for a person she loves where those things would be so much more meaningful. Is that believable? Not to me. Attractive, yes. But page after page reveals her charms, beauty and altruism so much that I began to wonder if the book is about anything else. Sure, I would like to meet her--long ago--the girl of my dreams, but it doth go on to long in that vein.

John is quite a contrast; so much so that it is unclear how they would connect in such a romance. He is on leave from an army base in Germany, a tatooed ex-rebelious youth with little education. His dad is an oddity--a person John is ashamed of and estranged from. However, he is staying with his dad, meets miss Unreal and off they go into unreal love.

Eventually I gave up, preferring to spend time with something more like I might encounter in life.

I like the author in most every way. He writes with grace--beautiful phraseology. Others of his works are probably great. I hope to check that out.