The true love is something that everyone wants to feel, but it is a fact that only a little part of the people has the luck to meet her. What does true love really mean? I bet each of us must give our own personalized definition of true love: to be honest and faithful and committed to giving joy to the one your care; willing to sacrifice ourselves for another at any time, even when that sacrifice might seem impossibly torturous to us…

What does true love really mean? John asks himself too, when he walks out from the hospital after having a conversation with Tim, who is now suffering from incurable disease. Tim is husband of John’s beloved woman, Savannah. He fell in love with her since he was 12. He loves her with all his heart although he knows all the time Savannah is truly in love with John.

He asks John to take care of Savannah since he knows that there may be something happen to him. But John makes up his mind to sell his father’s collected coins to save Tim, to ensure Savannah will not live so hard as now. He finally finds out that, true love means that we care for another person’s happiness more than our own, no matter how painful the choices we face might be.

That’s exactly the novel Dear John tells us.

Several days ago I was looking for some English novels on Amazon, and I found this one by chance. The brief introduction of Nicolas Sparks attracted me. He is a best-selling author, and he has wrote many famous love stories, including “The Notebook”. I had seen the motion picture a couple of weeks ago.

The movie was quite impressive and moving, and I wondered how he would describe a love story in words rather than frames and music. I decided to know a bit more to see if this was a book worthy of reading. So I found the E-book somewhere else and began to read, only to find that I couldn’t just stop as soon as I read the first line of it.

I wished all the time that, there would be a happy ending for the two young lovers. I was deeply absorbed day and night. The language is flowery and distinctively poetic in places. The metaphors and similes add a certain beauty and charm to the story.

There are some slow parts where Sparks has to explain some things but you can get through them without wanting to put the book away. I finished this 287-page book in 4 days. Most of the time I was just lying in bed reading, with the light off, and when I came back to reality it was already midnight.

It goes without saying that Nicholas Sparks is one of today’s “master” storytellers. He has an almost mesmerizing way of writing. The narrator brings us close by his very straightforward tale.

He never deceives us, but neither does he ever reveal too much. He’s telling us the story years after the events and he infuses the book with a quiet sorrow and muted mourning. He also has the ability to create moving stories without pulling punches or painful twists.

It is from the sadness that hope emerges, and John Tyree, although still quite young, gains wisdom that will last a lifetime. Sorrow will be a large part of this, yes, but there is room for something more, something that will reach beyond the pages and touch John’s tomorrow in a way only he will see.