Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell Review

Title:Eleanor and Park

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 336

Genre: Contemporary, romance

Published: February 26th, 2013 

 

Goodreads summary

 

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.

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Take my stars. Take all of them. This book is incredible. Rainbow Rowell is what I like to call a master of emotion. She weaves a story of first love, innocent love and heartache so beautifully that I read the entire book in one sitting. And by the end I was all:

I couldn't decide which character I loved more. The book is told through the joint narration of Eleanor, a vibrant red head with quirky fashion who makes the best of a very bad situation, and Park, a lovable, shy half-Korean boy who isn't really sure what that means other than other people tend to judge him on it. Eleanor isn't nice and Park isn't a valiant knight, they're just two kids who find something worth having in a place neither really want to be.

“I just can't believe that life would give us to each other," he said, "and then take it back."
"I can," she said. "Life's a bastard.”

This book hits you right in your nostalgic places. By the time Park slips a comic book onto the seat beside him I was all:

Because that's what this book does.

It's truthful and hurtful and by the time I finished I found myself staring aimlessly out of my window, wondering if I should write a postcard...

Eleanor is just trying to get through school, and her childhood, without drawing too much attention to herself. She is strong, much stronger than she knows, but she isn't perfect. She is nobody's hero. She wants to help, but she can't. She wishes things were different, but she accepts that they're not. She's only sixteen, and she knows the world is full of false hope.

 “Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.” 

Park is just trying to finish out high school without drawing too much attention from the kids at the back of the bus. Afraid he is a disappointment to his dad, and annoyed his music sometimes can't drown out the world he isn't prepared for Eleanor. He doesn't want to share his seat, he doesn't want to be associated with 'Big Red', but then things change. Time passes, time spent watching Eleanor, and suddenly he can't remember what he first thought of her. All Park knows is that he doesn't want her, he needs her - something anyone who has ever felt the sting of first love can relate to.

"I just meant that... I want to be the last person who ever kisses you, too.... That sounds bad, like a death threat or something. What I'm trying to say is, you're it. This is it for me.”

Eleanor and Park is a bittersweet, heartbreaking novel from an author who has instantly become a favourite. It's refreshing, sweet, laugh-out-loud, cry into your pillow kind of good.

"He was quiet. He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with 'I want you' in his ears.”

My only criticism is that the ending kind of tumble's out really fast. But, then again, sometimes things in life do tumble by fast. Maybe that's the point.

“He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them.

Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm.

And Eleanor disintegrated.”

If you read anything ever again in your life let it be this book. Love it or loathe it I guarantee you will relate to it. You will feel something.