No golden statue for Dear John

My older sister was reading Nicholas Sparks’ bestseller, Dear John, about a month ago. She accidentally left it at my house, so I took the liberty of taking it for a quick read. A quick read it was. The book ended with me throwing it across the room and shedding a few sad tears.
When books get turned into movies, I like to read the book before I see the movie so I can compare after. I always go into the movie with low expectations, knowing that movies can never live up to books. But in Nicholas Sparks’ case, I went in assuming that the movie would be just as great as The Notebook. Boy, was I wrong.

Right off the bat, the movie started differently from the book. They switched main characters around and made the ending a happy one so they would make more money. *Spoiler Alert* The book had the not-so-typical “they don’t end up together,” ending, which caused the tears, but the movie ends with the average “we broke up but we all know it isn’t over” ending. With the end scene being the two love birds seeing each other in an unknown city accidently, years later, and hugging passionately, making everyone assume they got back together.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Channing Tatum just as much as your average teenage girl. And he portrayed the hardcore military/surfer, John Tyree, very well. Amanda Seyfriend, who played John’s true love, Savannah Curtis, had great chemistry with Tatum on screen.
The acting didn’t ruin the book, but the misinterpretation of the text led to a way different movie that left me plainly disappointed.