Dear John [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Nicholas Sparks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2006

An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah. Their mutual attraction quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who captured his heart. But 9/11 changes everything. John feels it is his duty to re-enlist. And sadly, the long separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else. "Dear John," the letter read...and with those two words, a heart was broken and two lives were changed forever. Returning home, John must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still his true love--and face the hardest decision of his life.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah. Their mutual attraction quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who captured his heart. But 9/11 changes everything. John feels it is his duty to re-enlist. And sadly, the long separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else. "Dear John," the letter read...and with those two words, a heart was broken and two lives were changed forever. Returning home, John must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still his true love--and face the hardest decision of his life.

Go Behind the Scenes of the Motion Picture Dear John (Sony Pictures, 2010)
Starring Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum
(Click on each image below to see a larger view)

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--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Hot on the heels of True Believer and sequel At First Sight, Sparks returns with the story of ne'er-do-well-turned-army-enlistee John Tyree, 23, and well-to-do University of North Carolina special education major Savannah Lynn Curtis. John, who narrates, has been raised by a socially backward single postal-worker dad obsessed with coin collecting (he has Asperger's syndrome). John bypasses college for the overseas infantry; Savannah spends her college summers volunteering. When they meet, he's on leave, and she's working with Habitat for Humanity (he rescues her sinking purse at the beach). John has a history of one-night stands; Savannah's a virgin. He's an on-and-off drinker; she's a teetotaler. Attraction and values conflict the rest of the summer, but the deal does not close. Savannah longs for John to come home; her friend Tim longs to have a relationship with her. On the brink of John and Savannah's finally getting together, 9/11 happens, and John re-ups. Savannah's letters come less and less frequently, and before you know it, he receives the expected "Dear John" letter. Sparks's novel brims with longing. (Oct. 30)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books; 1 edition (October 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446528056
• ASIN: B000WO251Q
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (564 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #596,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nicholas Charles Sparks was born in Omaha, Nebraska on December 31, 1965, the second son of Patrick Michael (1942-1996) and Jill Emma Marie (Thoene) Sparks (1942-1989). His siblings are Michael Earl Sparks (b. Dec. 1964), and Danielle Sparks (b. Dec. 1966, d. June, 2000). As a child, he lived in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Grand Island, Nebraska, finally settling in Fair Oaks, California at the age of eight. His father was a professor, his mother a homemaker, then optometrist's assistant. He lived in Fair Oaks through high school, graduated valedictorian in 1984, and received a full track scholarship to the University of Notre Dame.
After breaking the Notre Dame school record as part of a relay team in 1985 as a freshman (a record which still stands), he was injured and spent the summer recovering. During that summer, he wrote his first novel, though it was never published. He majored in Business Finance and graduated with high honors in 1988.
He and his wife Catherine, who met on spring break in 1988, were married in July, 1989. While living in Sacramento, he wrote his second novel that same year, though again, it wasn't published. He worked a variety of jobs over the next three years, including real estate appraisal, waiting tables, selling dental products by phone, and started his own small manufacturing business which struggled from the beginning. In 1990, he collaborated on a book with Billy Mills, the Olympic Gold Medalist and it was published by Feather Publishing before later being picked up by Random House. (It was recently re-issued by Hay House Books.) Though it received scant publicity, sales topped 50,000 copies in the first year of release.
He began selling pharmaceuticals and moved from Sacramento, California to North Carolina in 1992. In 1994, at the age of 28, he wrote The Notebook over a period of six months. In October, 1995, rights to The Notebook were sold to Warner Books. It was published in October, 1996, and he followed that with Message in a Bottle (1998), A Walk to Remember (1999), The Rescue (2000), A Bend in the Road (2001), and Nights in Rodanthe (2002), The Guardian (2003), The Wedding (2003), Three Weeks with my Brother (2004), True Believer (2005) and At First Sight (2005) all with Warner Books. All were domestic and international best sellers and were translated into more than 35 languages. The movie version of Message in a Bottle was released in 1999, A Walk to Remember was released in 2002, and The Notebook was released in 2004. The average domestic box office gross per film was $56 million -- with another $100 million in DVD sales -- making the novels by Nicholas Sparks one of the most successful franchises in Hollywood.
The film rights to Nights in Rodanthe, True Believer and At First Sight have been sold, and Nicholas Sparks has written the screenplay for The Guardian, though he has not offered it for sale at this point.
He now has five children: Miles, Ryan, Landon, Lexie, and Savannah. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and children.
His ancestry is German, Czech, English, and Irish, he's 5'10" and weighs 180 lbs. He is an avid athlete who runs daily, lifts weights regularly, and competes in Tae Kwon Do. He attends church regularly and reads approximately 125 books a year. He contributes to a variety of local and national charities, and is a major contributor to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame, where he provides scholarships, internships, and a fellowship annually.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

133 of 154 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best novel since A Walk to Remember, October 30, 2006

By 

A. Robson (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dear John (Hardcover)

Wow. I had become quite bored with Sparks' latest novels, feeling they were cookie-cutter romance novels, but this book is a return to his old writing style. Similar to The Notebook, and A Walk to Remember, this book is a must read for any Sparks' fan, as well as anyone wanting an old fashioned love story...full of love, heartache, romance, fulfillment, tragedy, and sacrifice. Well done, well written, and just fabulous.

61 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Man's Long Journey, November 22, 2006

By 

Wantz Upon A Time Reviews (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dear John (Hardcover)

John Tyree is a soldier first, a man second. Or so he thinks until he meets Savannah Lynn Curtis. While on leave, he falls desperately in love with Savannah, the proverbial girl of his dreams. Sweet, intelligent, and giving, John knows he'll always carry her torch.

When September 11 changes the world, John is no exception. Moved by patriotic loyalty, he chooses to "re-up" in the army, adding time to his service and breaking his promise to return to Savannah. More promises are broken when he must attending to his ailing father.

This is the story of how an ideal love can falter, despite its purity and strength. Not every romance results in a happy ending, but with a great deal of luck, those who don't survive will find meaning from the experience. Love, loyalty, friendship--all those sentiments are great, but to what cost? And how does this make a good man great? This is John's journey to that understanding.

It goes without saying that Nicholas Sparks is one of today's "master" storytellers. Part of what makes him so successful is that he has the ability to create moving stories without pulling punches or painful twists. Such is the case in DEAR JOHN. Sparks offers a love story that has all the requisite components--well-crafted setting, high emotion, obstacles, resolution--then breaks it. It is from the sadness that hope emerges, and John Tyree, although still quite young, gains wisdom that will last a lifetime. Sorrow will be a large part of this, yes, but there is room for something more, something that will reach beyond the pages and touch John's tomorrow in a way only he will see.

While this works, there is something lacking. It is one of those hard-to-define qualities that marks the difference between a good book and one that is outstanding. Maybe it's the heavy reliance on John's soldiering as an excuse for certain behaviors. Or perhaps it has more to do with aspects relating to John's relationship with his father, who appears to have Asperger's syndrome.

I'm giving DEAR JOHN 4-Books for a beautiful story, but not five because of that indefinable element that was lost between idea and paper.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer

11/22/2006

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A story of love and war and honor., April 3, 2007

By 

J. M. Cornwell "Reviewer at Large" (Colorado Springs, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dear John (Hardcover)

John Tyree is an ordinary guy living an ordinary life, only child of a shy and silent father John doesn't understand. He rebelled against the calm order of his father's life, unable to understand why the only thing that mattered to him was coins, and fell in with a bad group of guys with nothing more than drinking and playing pool and working an endless stream of nowhere jobs. Fed up with his dead end life, John joins the Army and begins to grow up and find purpose--until Savannah Lynn Curtis enters his life.

Dark-haired, young, vibrant and full of life, Savannah Lynn Curtis is spending a month at the seashore in North Carolina with her college friends working for Habitat for Humanity. She stuns John at first glance. Her slightly gap-toothed smile sends him diving over the railing and into the sea to find her quickly sinking purse, while her college friends stand by and watch. John looks like a surf bum, but his tattoos and manners show Savannah something different. Her belief in John changes both their lives.

John is home on leave from Germany for two weeks. He spends them getting to know Savannah and falling in love. He also gets to know and understand his father through Savannah as he slowly comes out of his shell and begins to dream of a happier future. Their dreams come crashing down on September 11, 2001.

Nicholas Sparks is best known for his simple, straight forward love stories with lots of heart, a strong Christian theme and very little characterization, set in North Carolina. Dear John is another such story.

"Dear John" is a very quick read that skims the surface of his characters' lives, occasionally moving closer for a few moments of honest emotion, but never getting too close or too personal. Sparks deals quickly with 9/11, Kosovo and the Iraq war, focusing always on the love story that is as hazy and creased as an old photo. The characters' motivations at times are stereotypically prosaic, with an underlying message of sacrifice before love or happiness. The ending is not a big surprise, although there are moments when Sparks threatens to pull it off. Melodrama wins out in the end and Sparks does what he does best, touch the reader's emotions.

It is no surprise why Nicholas Sparks stays at the top of the New York Times best sellers list; he writes average stories for average people that glimmer with a promise of hope. Sparks will never win a Pulitzer Prize, but you can count on him turning out cookie cutter romances guaranteed to bring tears at the end.