Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

The Stats

My rating: * * * * *

Published: Feb. 2013

Hardcover, 328 pages

The Review

Let me start by saying I was not expecting to read this super popular love story at all. I'd heard about it but equated it to other teen love dramas that wouldn't interest me. It started on my five-plus hour bus trip from Frankfurt to Münich Germany this August. My cousin was reading this book and I was spacing out listening to music (Agnes Obel's latest album Aventine) and found myself reading over her shoulder. I know- most people hate that, but I don't think she noticed. Anyways, it was somewhere in the middle of the book but I was already intrigued by, and attached to the characters, I had to read more. 

This book has a unique way of doing the switching perspective thing (which I usually hate). It switches back and forth from Eleanor's and Park's POV, but at the same time it doesn't. It's still in third person the whole time just focusing on one or the other of them. I liked this writing approach a lot and was probably the main reason I liked this book, because the style of it was easy to follow and well-crafted. 

On to the plot, I immediately related to the characters; Rowell really understands the dynamics going on on the bus and at school. I love these scenes because they are SO real. Riding the bus was the worst, but in Eleanor & Park it evolves from being the worst to the best part of their days, I just found that so endearing. The two of them are a little lost; Eleanor's out of her element after moving back in with her mother and her mother's abusive boyfriend, she's new in school and readjusting to her family life. Park has always been in their small town but has never fit in, he's constantly battling with his dad's expectations, and the strict normalcy at school. It takes meeting Eleanor for him to realize he likes being weird. She teaches him how to embrace his oddities, though it does cause social tension. In return, Eleanor is taught by Park how to accept love and affection from others, it is so hard for her to understand that Park can think she's perfect even if she doesn't fit the standard image of beauty.

As a final note, I'd just like to say I really like the setting choices Rowell made. It's the 1980's in  a sort-of hick tight neighborhood. She handled the pop-culture references beautifully: not making me feel out of the loop by name-dropping things that would go over my head, but rather painting a picture of a life of awful gym suits, permed hair, and Walkmans that run out of battery at just the wrong time. Rowell handled the setting and the various subjects in her novel masterfully, and I couldn't put it down. 

“Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it’s like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it’s like to be young and in love with a book.”—John Green, The New York Times Book Review