Dear John is a novel published in 2006 by Nicholas Sparks, a best-selling American romance writer. In 2010, the book was adapted into a feature film starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried. Dear John tells the story of star-crossed lovers: John Tyree, a soldier on leave, falls for Savannah Lynn Curtis, a visiting college student. After 9/11, John must choose between duty to his country and the people who love him, both of whom he has left behind: his father and Savannah. John must ultimately choose between duty and love and decide what it means to love someone.

Plot Summary

Twenty-three-year-old John Tyree is back in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, on his annual two-week leave from the Army. Stationed in Germany, he spends his leave with his father. However, John and his father could not be more different. His father, a single parent with deeply ingrained routines and a love for coins, usually keeps to himself and his ways. After John tells him as an angry teenager that he never wants to hear about coins again, they have little to discuss. John has trouble finding his purpose. After a few years of hanging aimlessly around Wilmington, he decides to join the Army.

One day, while surfing, John meets Savannah Lynn Curtis, a student in town working on a Habitat for Humanity project with other students from Chapel Hill, when he dives into the ocean to retrieve Savannah’s purse that fell from the dock. She invites him back to their rental house, where they are having a barbeque. He meets some of Savannah’s friends, including Tim, a longtime family friend. John and Savannah begin to fall in love and are inseparable from that moment on. Their time together slips away, and John soon knows she is the person he wants to marry when he is done with his military obligation—just one year longer.

The pair have a whirlwind romance, but Savannah doesn’t feel ready to sleep with John because she thinks people are too casual about sex; for her, being with a person in that way is something special. John understands, and this deepens their relationship. Savannah is very interested in meeting John’s father, Mr. Tyree, but John is hesitant since his father doesn’t have many social skills. However, Savanah talks to him about coins, so they have much to talk about. Through this interaction, John begins to see his father differently. However, when Savannah, who is studying Special Education, suggests that John’s father may be on the spectrum and presents with many of the symptoms of someone who has Asperger’s Disease, John is infuriated. However, this suggestion gives John insight into his father and begins to bridge the distance between the father and son.

John returns to Germany with the promise to Savannah that he will return in a little over a year to marry her. Before he leaves, Savannah gives John a letter to read on the plane, and this begins an exchange of letters between the couple. In June 2001, John and Savannah are reunited for John’s last leave. John meets Savannah’s parents; they spend the week together at school and end the leave with John’s father. However, the hard reality of their situation settles in, and John realizes that while he has been gone, Savannah has made a whole life on her own. Savannah shares how difficult it has been to be away from him. The pair make love for the first time on this trip. A few months later, September 11 rocks the country, and John decides to re-up with the Army, without knowing what this means for him and Savannah. John receives news that his father has had a major heart attack and is hospitalized. John returns home. Even though Savannah is there as much as possible, John’s time is mainly spent at his father’s bedside. His father is discharged, and John again must say goodbye to his weak father and Savannah, who is coming to terms with the fact that John will not be leaving the service as planned. The couple must face the reality that they will not be together as soon as they thought.

With the fate of the country and their relationship unknown, letters from Savannah slowly become a trickle. Eventually, John receives a letter from Savannah; she has fallen in love with someone else. John struggles with the loss of Savannah and his father’s failing health. He does what he can from afar to make his father comfortable and even returns to find his father struggling to take care of himself, his house in disarray, and sleeping in his own filth. John knows he has no other choice than to place his father in a care facility but knows that the change in location and routine will kill him faster than his illness. John leaves his father in a facility, scared and alone, to return to his duties in the Army. His father dies seven weeks later, before John can say goodbye.

Granted emergency leave, John returns home for the funeral. Overwhelmed with grief, John finds himself at Savannah’s doorstep. John learns that Savannah has married Tim, her lifelong friend, and he is sick with skin cancer. The last couple of years have been tough for Savannah at home, taking care of the farm, Tim, and Alan (Tim’s brother, who has autism.) The outlook for Tim doesn’t look good, and after a few days with Savannah and Tim, John realizes there is no room for him in Savannah’s life, even after promising Tim that he will look after Savannah if anything happens to him. In a tearful goodbye with Savannah, John leaves, but not before selling his father’s coin collection and donating the earnings to Tim, anonymously, to help him afford the trial treatment insurance companies won’t approve.

A year later, he watches the farm from afar, knowing Tim’s health has improved, and the couple has a chance at happiness. Still, once the full moon has risen, he sees that Savannah steps outside and still looks at it.