Eleanor & Park (Rainbow Rowell)
To say Eleanor and Park is just a love story, or a book on teenage romance, is to do it a gross disservice. Eleanor and Park doesn’t just narrate first love, it takes you right back there again. To read it is to feel the all-consuming glory of a first love; the detail and nuance of getting to know another person and to think about them constantly, the shock of discovering the way they can make you feel, the sheer bliss associated with these discoveries and the strange and exhilarating feeling of emotions that you never fathomed could exist. Quite simply, this book beautifully and vividly narrates what it is like to fall utterly and completely in love for the first time.
Eleanor is new to town and as a red-headed,
freckled misfit with her own eccentric style, she knows fitting in will be
tough. Park is half Korean and half
American, keeps his head low, listens to punk music and generally does his best
to stay under the radar. Alternately narrated
by each, Eleanor and Park first meet on the school bus when Eleanor immediately
becomes the object of derision in her self-conscious and fumbling attempts to claim
a seat. In a flash of pity and
annoyance, Park offers the seat next to him, and so begins their slow courtship
through silence, comic books, mix tapes and finally, conversation and love.
However the path of true love never
does (of course) run smooth. Eleanor has
recently returned to her mother and stepfather; a situation that is far from
domestic idyll. When this is compared to
Park’s parents who are deeply in love (and not afraid to show it), the path of
Eleanor and Park’s romance is contrasted against their home lives, and the perceptions
that each bring based on their understanding of love and intimacy from their
families.
It is not the story itself which
makes Eleanor and Park so memorable, it’s the ability Rowell has to truly
immerse you in the small, but momentous scenes of first love that the book
describes. The ability to create the feeling
that comes with discovering first love using such simple and evocative language,
reminds the reader why so much of our literature is dedicated to the topic. If you want to fall in love again, I would
suggest you start by falling in love with this book.
Rowell, R 2013, Eleanor & Park, Orion Publishing Co., London.
Young Adult - Romance
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