Dear John is about a guy--named John--who meets a girl, Savannah. They fall in love and are happy until John goes off to war. When they don't see each other for a while, Savannah drops him. John is heartbroken and wants to die. Some other stuff happens in between.A while back, Stephen King wrote a book called Misery where author Paul Sheldon earns a fortune peddling garbage romance novels despite an utter abhorrance for his own work. It's only when his latest book kills off the heroine that Paul discovers just how maniacally devoted some fans can be. This is what comes to mind with Nicholas Sparks; a man who must begin each novel thinking "What feat of mindless claptrap can be achieved here?".
Sparks should indeed be commended (no, really) as an individual who's perfected a very marketable craft. He's not just about giving readers what they want to hear, but what they want to feel. While much is mere formulaic dribble--savvy convenience of plot conditions meshed with timing and sentiment--it's the constancy of personalized reactions and churning emotions that reinforce sympathy (and lure in the saps) for characters like John. It's also something romance/domestic/cozy/contemporary fiction hasn't seen too much of: the affected sensitivity of a type-a male protagonist.
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