Lit Circle Letter Part 1 & 2: Dear John

For this month's lit circle, my group and I have been reading Dear John written by Nicholas Sparks. There were a few parts where I had a few thoughts about and I had little notes to them.

In part 1 of the novel, John Tyree introduces himself. He was at home town, Wilmington, North Carolina, to stay with his father for a few weeks until he has to go back to the army at Germany due to the 9/11 incident. The way John described his father was he was a very boring guy who likes to collect coins. Well, he isn't really that boring, but it just seems that way, like when John says that his father does the same things every single day as a routine. One day, John went down to the beach and he saw this girl with brunette colored hair and a blond one and 2 guys on the pier. John and the brunette, Savannah, looked at each other and said Hi to each other. John just experienced love at first sight! One of Savannah's friends, Randy, knocked down her bag full of important stuff, like her wallet and money and a picture of her and her friends into the water and didn't want to pick it up. He did apologize to her and all, but it didn't seem like he meant it. Savannah was about to jump in to the water to get her bag until then, John jumped in the water and got it for her. Savannah thanked him and she invited him to a party that her crew was having back in the house. The two of them hung out more day after day and got to know more about each other that they soon fell in love with each other. Savannah is a college student and she’s only on spring break and is helping build a house for Habitat for Humanity. The part that I liked about part 1 is how they met each other and they fell in love. I think that was really sweet and cute.

Part 2: After spring break, Savannah has to go back to school and John has to go back to Germany. Both John and Savannah don’t want their relationship to end, so they decided to call each other and write letters to each other, until the next time they see each other again, which is in a year. It's really tough for them to be in a long distance relationship and have to contact each other just by mail. John told Savannah when he is done with the war, he will come back and he will marry her. Due to 9/11, John wants to reenlist in the army. After several years away from each other, Savannah writes another letter to John telling him good bye.
What I didn’t like about the part 2 of the novel is when John had to leave Savannah to go back to the war. I can sort of relate to the whole long distant relationship thing like those two, but waiting until a year too see their beloved one for just a few days or a week is definitely not enough, unless their love is extremely strong. But their love isn’t strong enough. Savannah apparently had to say good bye to John and that was a very difficult thing for her to do.

Even though John is in the army and has to fight for his country in the war, the war isn’t even that relevant to the story, because this story is mainly about two lovers trying to keep their long distance relationship strong by writing letters to each other, catching up on each others lives.