While ordering a birthday present online for my brother last month, I decided to also purchase the book "Eleanor and Park" by Rainbow Rowell. I haven’t read any of Rowell’s other novels, but "Eleanor and Park" was one that I had wanted to read for over a year but didn’t have the chance to, so I purchased it with the hope that the book was as good as the cover and synopsis led me to believe. The book arrived last week, and I started reading it as soon as I got a chance.
It turned out to be even better than I had thought possible. Normally it takes me a while to really get into a book, but I fell in love with this one from the beginning. I read around 25 pages one night, followed by another 70 or so the next night, and then read the other 200+ pages on and off the following two days. When I wasn’t reading it, I was contemplating how the story would progress, and how it would end.
This book focuses on two main perspectives: Eleanor Douglas, the new student who dresses weirdly and gets picked on daily, and Park Sheridan, an Asian boy who likes punk rock music and prefers to keep to himself. Their relationship grows throughout the story. The two start out as strangers who end up sharing a seat on the bus together, become acquaintances who share comics and music with one another, and eventually fall in love. We also learn about their wildly different lives and insecurities. Park, being the only Asian boy at school, struggles to find common ground with many of the other students and struggles to see eye to eye with his parents despite having a good family life. Eleanor’s struggles are more complex. Aside from the harassment she faces at school, she feels on edge at home since she moved back in with her family after being kicked out the year prior. She avoids her abusive stepdad as much as possible and finds it hard to be close to her mom and four younger siblings, all of whom appear to be submissive to her stepdad. Her actual father is relatively flaky, and doesn’t contact Eleanor unless he needs something from her. The story itself ends on a cliffhanger, which is slightly disappointing, but Rowell adds an explanation at the end for why she chose to end the book how she did. I’m not too heartbroken though, because it allows the reader to interpret the ending differently.
What really impressed me with "Eleanor and Park" is how strong the characters are and how the two protagonists enhanced the story. They weren’t overwhelmingly cynical, nor were they unbelievably happy with their lives. Their romance seemed believable and not overly sappy, as well. The characters grew and changed with the story, becoming more confident and brave with every chapter while also remaining true to themselves. I spent a lot of time while reading wondering how the characters were going to disappoint me or make me hate them, but they never really did. There were moments where I got annoyed with one of them, but they were aspects of their insecurities which ended up not poisoning the overall flow of the story.
The book itself reminded me a lot like John Green’s novels, which focus on teenagers who fall for each other and have similar traits to "Eleanor and Park"; however, I felt a stronger bond to Rowell’s writing. As I said, the characters were strong and had believable personalities, and the writing was solid and gave various twists and turns despite having a seemingly predictable plot. I have only read two of Green’s novels ("The Fault In Our Stars" and "Paper Towns"), and liked them a lot, but I had trouble connecting with the characters overall. Despite having a few different quirks, they all had cynical personalities that got a little annoying at times, and each one had oddly strong vocabularies despite being teenagers which made the dialogue hard to believe (both of which are trends I noticed in both novels). Both stories had good plots, as well, but took me more time to get into than "Eleanor and Park" likely due to my struggles to relate to the characters.
My desire to read "Eleanor and Park" ended up being worth it, as was the long wait I endured to actually read the book. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys young adult novels and look forward to reading more of Rainbow Rowell’s work.
