Really Good Read: Dear John

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Usually I prefer original book covers, before the movie poster becomes the book cover. However, Channing Tatum... Well, I don't think I need to justify my choice.

This isn’t a new book. Even though I work in the media, I tend to read the way most people do–what I want to, when I want to, and if something comes recommended by someone else. Yes, I’ll definitely check out books that are trending, like Fifty Shades of Grey; I hate not being part of a conversation. But that’s a media-me thing. What I read for pleasure doesn’t have to be the most current or literary-pinky-in-the-air highbrow art.

Nicholas Sparks is in a category by himself, a guy who writes beautiful love stories. I’ve seen more of his movies than I’ve read his books. This isn’t hard to do, considering that most of his books have been made into movies. I still haven’t recovered from The Notebook.

While I haven’t seen the film version of Dear John, I don’t know how even Channing Tatum and his broody sensitivity could do the innermosts of Sparks’s John Tyree justice. I won’t tell you too much more than what you already know: Dear John is about a soldier and his girl, what drives them apart, and what brings them back together–not at all in the way you’d expect. Most striking about Sparks’s writing is the depth of his characters; they’re as flesh and blood as real people, but as sensitive, loving, and caring as you’d hope real people would be (and aren’t usually). You feel what they feel.

I’d heard more about Nicholas Sparks’s books than I actually knew, but based on Dear John, I’ll look forward to spending the summer with more of his beautifully created characters.