Title: Eleanor & Park
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: February 26, 2013
Source: Purchased from Amazon
Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.
Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.
Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.
Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.
One extraordinary love.
Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.
Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.
Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.
My Review
All in all, I was really impressed by this book by Rainbow Rowell. It was the first book that I read by this author, and I am now a fan! I will admit that I was frustrated with the ending of the novel, but it seems many people were as well. But hey... that's what reading is all about. Not everything gets tied up perfectly because life is messy. Ms. Rowell makes her novel that much more realistic by not tying things up nicely. Sometimes, there isn't a perfect ending in life, and books that give that message are, at least to me, one hundred percent more perfect because they show that life isn't perfect.
Other
than that, I really did enjoy this book. It was a cute tale of two kids who fall in love but realize they aren't really right for each other. It is also a serious novel with the many things that Eleanor has gone through in her life. It is
something that I think teenagers should read because it's not just a
book about falling in love. It's about falling in love when your whole
world is collapsing. It's dangerous. It's stunning. It shows that so
many people really have it worse than you do, and that is something we
all need to understand to become better people.
I would be thrilled to see a sequel to this novel to learn more about Eleanor and her life after she left town. I think she still has quite a bit to tell us. On the other hand, I think Park has a story of his own to tell. Even if we don't get a sequel, these two characters have made me think, and that's the wonderful thing about reading.
I would recommend this book for fans of contemporary YA novels, but also for fans of the ABC Family show The Fosters.
Reviewer's Note: If you haven't done so already, check out some of the fan art for Eleanor and Park. It is fabulous. You can even find some of it in the Collector's Edition of Eleanor & Park from Barnes & Noble.
We're on the exact same page about the ending. I.NEED. MORE. Fingers crossed for that sequel! I'm seriously hoping Eleanor said "I love you" or something similar, too. A lot of people I've talked to just take that for granted, but I can't ignore my worries that, as you said, she was telling him to stop or leave her alone or something.
ReplyDeleteBoth Eleanor and Park were masterfully crafted characters, I loved them. Fortunately my life doesn't seem as difficult as either of theirs, but I still related to their situations and found myself writing down page numbers to remember all of the the great quotes.
Connie - Did you see the Goodreads chat with her? She says there won't be a sequel, but the important part about the ending is that Eleanor reached out to Park when she was scared. It makes sense, but I still want to know what those three words are.
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