Dear John
Nicholas Sparks, 2006
★ 4.05 from 627.8k ratings on Goodreads
One summer, a soldier and a college student fall in love; the years apart ask whether love can survive distance and duty. A tender, longing love story told in a lyrical voice, with memory and time pressing on every page.
Feels like longing, tenderness and melancholy. About love, time and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy tender, memory-soaked love stories shaped by distance and duty. Some readers found the central romance rushed or unconvincing, so the love story may not sweep you along.
Why read it
It offers an honest look at love stretched by distance and duty, and at how memory keeps shaping what we feel.
A page from the book
Some love stories are made mostly of the time in between.
I fell in love with her when we were together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years we were apart. Our story has three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. And although this is the way all stories unfold, I still can’t believe that ours didn’t go on forever. What readers say
Readers were often deeply moved and brought to tears, but many were frustrated by the unhappy ending and found the romance rushed or unconvincing. Others valued the emotional realism and the father-son relationship.
Nicholas Sparks.Sparks wrote The Notebook in six months. Dear John's title borrows the wartime slang for a breakup letter sent to a soldier overseas.
Books that feel like this
More by Nicholas Sparks
The Notebook
Nicholas Sparks, 1996
An old man's devotion to the woman he loves, told in plain, unguarded prose for anyone who has ever measured a life by whom they loved.
The Rescue
Nicholas Sparks, 2000
A single mother and a volunteer firefighter fall in love while a secret from his past tests the trust they are building.
A Walk to Remember
Nicholas Sparks, 1999
A small-town troublemaker falls for the minister's daughter, and one ordinary year becomes the measure of his life.
Where to get it
Some of these links earn us a small commission, at no cost to you. It keeps BookFeed free.
Questions readers ask
- Is Dear John for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy tender, memory-soaked love stories shaped by distance and duty. Some readers found the central romance rushed or unconvincing, so the love story may not sweep you along.
- What is Dear John like?
- A tender, longing love story told in a lyrical voice, with memory and time pressing on every page. Feels like longing, tenderness and melancholy. About love, time and memory.
- What should I read after Dear John?
- If you liked Dear John, try The Last Letter (Rebecca Yarros), It Ends with Us (Colleen Hoover) and New Moon (Stephenie Meyer).
A taste of the feed
What it costs to be trusted by someone who has stopped believing.
I would do anything for you.” His eyes locked onto mine in the dashboard lights, intense and a little hurt. “What is it going to take for you to believe me? To trust me? You want my background checked? Do it. You want my credit score? Awesome. My bank account? I’ll add you on. You have my word, my body, my time, and I’m standing here offering my last name. What else can I give you?
The Last Letter · Rebecca Yarros
Grief keeps its own clock, and it does not keep good time.
Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.
New Moon · Stephenie Meyer
What it sounds like to wait eleven years without making it an accusation.
I’ve been waiting for you to come home for eleven years. I’ll go anywhere you go.
Love and Other Words · Christina Lauren
Read pages from books like this, one at a time
Keep reading in the feed