First things first, I'm going to tell you - hopefully briefly - about the new shelf I made and also, why I ever picked up this unfinished book again.

This is my second attempt at writing this review... stupid crashingness!

My Breakup Book Challenge

I realised, some time last year, that I have an unfinished book for every doomed relationship in my history, it's not many - mind you - but still. A weird thing to notice.... 13 years after the first was shelved, no? And whilst I didn't really care whether I ever finished Dear John there are a couple books on that shelf I do really want to re-read/finish. I chose this to be the starting point for a couple reasons, a) I didn't care if I ever finished this book so if I ended up hating it - residually - it didn't really matter, and b) it was the most logical of my thusly shelved books. With it being a book with an MC named John and the man I was dating at the time also being named John. Self preservation and all.

I've read a fair few of Nicholas Sparks books and I always find them rather ploying. Sparks is not an organic writer... he seeks to make you feel a particular way and uses heavy-handed tactics to invest the reader, it's the way he writes. Leaving out the whole bible thumping and slut, vice and imperfection shaming nature of his writing - for the moment - I will say that this is very similar to all his other books. You've read one Sparks book and you've pretty much read them all. He doesn't really have a style, unless you get into the jesus preach and waify inhumanly perfect female characters. Sparks, what is so wrong with a female who enjoys a glass of wine or two, huh? Why does she have to be depressed to drink, you judgmental ass? I digress.

I understand why romantics hate this novel, I really do! I, however, do not hate it. I wouldn't say I particularly like it but it has some merrit. There is a lot of shit heaped on this novel for the ending and I think that's crap, personally. I know Sparks hammers an ideal world into some peoples head with his writing and makes everyone think that love means riding into the sunset together. I prefer the real world... gritty, vice-riddled and chaotic as it may be... and whilst I don't think this could be said to live there, the ending is closer to it than the ending everyone seemed to want.

I've really got nothing left to say about this. I remember drawing paralells to what I knew about Afghanistan and what he wrote but I just can't be bothered. People aren't reading this for real life soldier accuracy anyways.

It's been done - and better - so I guess I'll just say, read it if you want... don't if you don't want, you aren't missing anything.

Just because I cannot resist:

Dear Nicholas Sparks,

I really do not want to like you. I was all happy living in my somewhat snobby literary world where I turned my nose up at your novels. So many people love you and gush over your books. I would either bite my tongue to prevent myself from voicing my superior opinion because I was trying to be the good non-biased readers' advisory librarian; or if my friends were all gaga I would roll my eyes and talk about what good literature really is.

Yeah, well, then I saw a kick ass preview from a movie that is coming out in February based on one of your books, Dear John. My infatuation with this preview was due to Channing Tatum, which dear God I just cannot help myself - I totally love, and the song Set Fire to the Third Bar by Snow Patrol. It looked like a fabulous heart-wrenching romance - my favorite kind. I couldn't get that preview out of my head and sometimes I would find it online to watch it (yes, I know, so pathetic). Then my coworker said she loved the preview too and decided to read it, and liked it. Despite the fact that I have ssoooo many other things I need to be reading, YA lit mostly, I thought, oh what the hell, why not?

How do you do it? How do you write so simply and honest and yet so incredibly gut and heart wrenching? How is it, that you of all people, write my favorite kind of romance? The not always happy ending, bittersweet - the tragedy of love. The kind where I have one hand holding the book and the other one clutching my heart because you are slowly scraping at it trying to mangle it and in order to keep breathing so I can finish your damn book, I have to try and hold my heart together. You're killing me. What I want to know is, are there men out there really like John Tyree? I know most women wonder if the men in romance novels really exist or want them to exist so badly that they live in a false reality or read them because they are bitter and believe that no man exists like that. But mostly women write romance and they create the men we want. But you are a man. Do you still create men that you think women will want because you know it will sell or is some bit of honesty in the way you portray your men? Am I allowed to hope that honorable men exist and that there is a possibility of finding one?

I've decided to try and keep hope alive and just go with there are very honest honorable men out there who are capable of sensitivity, true love and passion. So now, I'm so very glad and yet so very sorry to report that I am a fan of yours, even if I don't freely admit it. I need to keep some semblance of snobbery intact, at least for show. So thank you, thank you for giving a tragic romantic a good cry on a Friday afternoon and for also giving her hope and helping her to clearly etch out the man she wishes to be with someday.

your new reluctantly adoring fan,

Connie

'What does it mean to truly love another?'
An opening line like this, Man, I was completely pulled into the story and I couldn't help myself falling for it. To be frank, I kinda doubted if this would be a good book as I came to knew this has to do something about war, fight and stuffs, as those were not my type. And hero being in Army, that was the last thing I wanted. But what did I read was completely off the beat. I just loved the book. It had only something around 10% to 20% to deal with the war surroundings, but even that won't bore you. It had those heart ripping moments, and moments where you would wipe your tear and curse the characters and walk with heavy heart. I loved the book to the core. More than the hero, heroine and their love and romance and then war, what really touched me deep down is the dad and son bond. I loved the character of hero's dad. He was quite something. This being the first book of Nicholas Sparks, I really would like read a lot of his books. And 'what does it mean to truly love another?', I got the answer; the best one, indeed.