Hello, bookclubbers!
I apologize that these discussion questions for our May book of the month are coming to you several weeks late. I hope you enjoyed the Nicholas Sparks tear jerker as much as I did!
1. In the first sentence of the prologue, John asks: "What does it mean to truly love another?" How does John's answer to this question change over the course of the novel? How would you answer this question?
2. Why does John get so angry when Savannah suggests what she does about his father and how, in the end, does this revelation change John's life and his relationship with his father?
3. When John goes back to Germany after his furlough, he and Savannah vow to stay in touch and to marry when he returns. Do you think it's possible to stay in love with someone without seeing them for months or years at a time? How does being apart affect Savannah and John's relationship?
4. Do you think Savannah should have waited for John to come home or do you think it was understandable that she moved on with her life?
5. What do you make of John's actions at the very end of the novel? Would you have done what he did if you were in his position?
6. How do you interpret the novel's ending? How do you imagine John's future?
Friday, June 18, 2010
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I love this book! Then again, I'm a big fan of his work anyway.
ReplyDelete1. John really didn't know what true love was at the beginning of the book. He thought he had loved that one girl, but when he finds Savannah, he knows he never had loved her. I feel like his final answer was that when you truly love someone, you give up your happiness for their happiness.
2. I feel like he got angry because now there was a valid reason for his dad's actions. He had spent the majority of his life, hating his dad and being upset at him and his actions that now it was explaining it, and he didn't want his dad to have an excuse. At the end, he spent that time trying to get to know his dad all over again.
3. I think that it would be hard. Months would be a little bit easier because there is always an ending date was to when you will see them. Being apart for the length of time that our two characters were, was hard on them and Savannah was over in the US just waiting for word that something had happened or that he was coming home. It was a roller-coaster of emotions for her, that eventually ended it.
4. I think she should have for the fact that she still loved John sooo deeply. Not that's not just the "Romantic" coming out in me, but in the end, as John and Tim are sitting in the hospital room talking, Tim acknowledges the fact that Savannah had never stopped loving him. And that she would never love him like she loved John. I think she forced herself to move partly on with her life, but I don't think that she completely moved on with it.
5. I think John did an amazing act of kindness, but a bigger act of love. He did what was in his power to help the woman that he loved, even if it was helping her and her husband. You know, I would like to say that I would have done the same, but we never really know what we would do in that situation unless we are in it.
6. In a way its romantic, showing that she still loved him. But on the other hand, spying on her from the woods, as he's done before, is a little creepy, lol. I imagine that John turned into a lifer of the ARMY.