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Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park Will Break Your Heart (And Put It Back Together)
Sometimes a book comes along that make you SO EXCITED, you want to give a copy of it to everyone you know, so you can immediately start talking/crying/laughing about it together. Maybe it’s because you see yourself in the book, or wish you did, or because it says something so true and honest about the human experience that you can’t imagine anyone reading it and not being a slightly better person coming out the other side.
Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park is one of those books. It’s the story of two high school juniors who meet on the school bus and hate each other immediately. Eleanor is an awkward, eccentrically dressed new girl, and Park’s a medium-popular boy who just wants to keep his head down and get through the day. But after he lets Eleanor take the seat beside him (a big social risk), things start to change, and slowly those bus rides together become the best part of their day. From this modest setup blooms one of the best love stories ever told in young adult literature. If we haven’t yet convinced you to drop everything and READ. THIS. BOOK, allow us to keep trying. Here are four reasons you must read Eleanor & Park.
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The love story. Eleanor and Park don’t fall in love at first sight. In fact, they can’t stand each other. When that starts to change, it’s because of little things: Park likes the way Eleanor reads a poem in class, and the fact that her mouth looks a little like the Joker’s (that’s a compliment). Eleanor starts to fall for Park’s strong hands, and the stack of comic books he lets her read over his shoulder, though he pretends not to see her doing it. Their affection builds slowly, alongside their tentative trust. Like a modern-day Jane Austen, Rowell ratchets up the tension until even the smallest gestures are weighted with meaning. The first time Eleanor and Park hold hands, you’re going to squee. And the first time they talk on the phone, you’re going to PASS OUT.
The characters. Eleanor and Park are hilarious and smart, and they talk like human beings. They’re sharp-tongued and not always nice, but so richly drawn that every word they say feels true to who they are. And you’ll fall almost as deeply in love with Rowell’s supporting characters—like Park’s mom, a pint-sized Korean expat with a personality as big as the teased hair she gives Eleanor, or Park’s friend Cal, a would-be player who never gives up his dream of somehow tricking his dream girl into dating him.
The pop culture snapshot. Eleanor and Park fall in love over mix tapes and comic books in 1980s Omaha, where kids write Smiths lyrics in their notebooks and have their minds blown by Watchmen. You’ll want to run out and read/listen to everything they do…and you might find yourself reliving your own pop culture coming of age, whether you spent it swooning over the Beatles or Taylor Swift.
The heartbreak. This book has higher stakes and more genuine heartache than just about any love story you’ve ever read, including the ones that involve saving the world. Eleanor’s atrocious home life is rendered so realistically you can smell it, and by the time Park starts talking about them sharing a whole big future together, you’ll believe that it’s possible. You may find yourself reading this book late into the night, desperate to know whether they’ll make it out of their troubles alive…and together.
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