Eleanor and Park
I picked this book up expecting a light, happy, young adult romance. Instead I got put through an emotional wringer. This book broke my heart. Then is painstakingly pieced it back together again only to completely shatter it at the end. And then it left me with the smallest sliver of hope. It was very nearly perfect, and I'm mad at myself for taking this long to read it.
Eleanor and Park is about the love story of two teenagers (Eleanor and Park) in Omaha in 1986. They bond over comics and mix tapes, they fumble their way together with all the awkwardness and intensity of teenagers falling love for the first time. And then they suddenly have to grow up and they do it imperfectly and wonderfully and it just left me ruined.
Park is half Korean and sticks out like a sore thumb in his little midwest town. He's not quite manly enough to win his father's approval, but his mother's love nearly makes up for it. He's incredibly atrtactive and weird and quiet, which puts him firmly on the outskirts of the popular group. And he's just trying to get through high school when Eleanor arrives and sends his world spinning on it's axis.
But Eleanor is only gonna break his heart. Her father is about as absent as it's possible to be while still dangling the hope that he cares about his kids. Her mother is remarried to an abusive jerk that she does her best to just avoid. She has four younger siblings and they all share a single room and they don't know how to protect each other from their mother's choices. Eleanor is prickly and angry and would like to just disappear. She spends her life trying to be as small as possible until Park comes along and actually sees her and likes what he sees.
Their relationship is so slow and tentative and adorable. I was rooting for them so hard and cringing at all those little things that teenagers mess up because they don't know any better. All the little ways they fail to communicate with each other. But they make it work, and man they could have had it all. If not for Eleanor's shitty, shitty stepfather.
I can't really say enough good things about this book. It's one of Rowell's first, but it may also be her best. A true masterpiece.
Eleanor and Park is about the love story of two teenagers (Eleanor and Park) in Omaha in 1986. They bond over comics and mix tapes, they fumble their way together with all the awkwardness and intensity of teenagers falling love for the first time. And then they suddenly have to grow up and they do it imperfectly and wonderfully and it just left me ruined.
Park is half Korean and sticks out like a sore thumb in his little midwest town. He's not quite manly enough to win his father's approval, but his mother's love nearly makes up for it. He's incredibly atrtactive and weird and quiet, which puts him firmly on the outskirts of the popular group. And he's just trying to get through high school when Eleanor arrives and sends his world spinning on it's axis.
But Eleanor is only gonna break his heart. Her father is about as absent as it's possible to be while still dangling the hope that he cares about his kids. Her mother is remarried to an abusive jerk that she does her best to just avoid. She has four younger siblings and they all share a single room and they don't know how to protect each other from their mother's choices. Eleanor is prickly and angry and would like to just disappear. She spends her life trying to be as small as possible until Park comes along and actually sees her and likes what he sees.
Their relationship is so slow and tentative and adorable. I was rooting for them so hard and cringing at all those little things that teenagers mess up because they don't know any better. All the little ways they fail to communicate with each other. But they make it work, and man they could have had it all. If not for Eleanor's shitty, shitty stepfather.
I can't really say enough good things about this book. It's one of Rowell's first, but it may also be her best. A true masterpiece.
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