**SPOILER ALERT: If you've been hiding under a rock and haven't read/seen the film and plan on seeing it at some point in the future, you should stop reading.
Okay, here's the sitch. I read this book a couple of years ago and fell in deep, deep love with it. I cried my way through the last 5 pages or so and lost more than a few hours of sleep over it. But in the best way possible.
You see, the thing that is rare and moving and real about "Dear John," book, is that John and Savannah make decisions and chose separate paths and have to live with their decisions. There isn't some constructed, perfect ending where hearts are healed and lives are perfect and things just "work out."
Who would want to read that anyway?
I don't know why I like to make myself cry like this.
Okay, here is the last snippet of the book. Hang on...
Okay, I just ran down to my car to grab the book. I knew I'd been meaning to unload that for the last 2 months.
If you're still reading, I assume you know that Savannah and John broke up when he was away at war, and she married Tim, who is now sick with cancer. John sells his dad's coin collection in order to help with his treatment, the treatment is successful and Tim is in remission.
John goes to Savannah's house and, spying on her, sees her happy with her new family. He also sees as she wanders out late at night to look at the moon, which is significant to their relationship for some reason that I can't remember at the moment.
And here are the absolute last, final words of the novel...
"She pauses then and crosses her arms, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one has followed her. Finally, she seems to relax. And then I feel as if I'm witnessing a miracle, as ever so slowly she raises her face toward the moon. I watch her drink in the sight, sensing the flood of memories she's unleashed and wanting nothing more than to let her know I'm here. But instead, I stay where I am and stare up at the moon as well. And for the briefest instant, it almost feels like we are together again."
-Nicholas Sparks
Ugh.
I'm having trouble containing myself right now...
She loves him! And he loves her! And it should be so easy, but it's just not. She is married, and he made a choice to stay away at war and she made a choice to marry someone else, but, oh heavens, she still loves John. Is this incredibly heartbreaking and tragic to anyone else or am I just losing my mind?
I am telling you, this ending haunted me for days. And I waited oh-so-anxiously for my sob-fest at the theatre when the film came out and I watched Channing Tatum's lovely face watching Amanda Seyfried's face looking at the moon and yearning for things that could not be.
And you know what Hollywood did to me? Well, they screwed me over by creating an ending in which the sick and second-best husband dies, making room for John and Savannah to conveniently meet up at a coffee shop later on and hug and oh of course they are going to end up together now.
Bologna.
I can't even think about how infuriated it makes me that they turned all this heartbreak and longing into one perfect, ribbon-wrapped gift box of a film. Ugh.
Sometimes I wish Hollywood would just let me cry some more.
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