Eleanor & Park Review!

About the book:

Title: Eleanor & Park

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Genre & Age Group: Contemporary, realistic fiction, historical fiction, romance, young adult

Goodreads Synopsis:

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.

Source: Public library

How I Found Out About It: Goodreads

Review: This is one of the cutest romance reads I’ve ever read! Eleanor and Park were just so perfect for each other, and I was rooting for them the whole time! In many romance books I read, one of the protagonists is pining for somebody they can’t have at the moment because they’re usually with someone else, but in this book, there was none of that, just good, solid romance! This is the first book I’ve read by Rainbow Rowell, and her writing is just amazing, and now I can’t wait to pick up Fangirl! From reading this, I could totally understand why readers have gone CRAZY for her work. To sum up this story, it’s 1986, and Eleanor is new to Park’s school. (Yes, this story doesn’t take place in current times, but there are not really mentions of historical events happening then, so this is still good solid contemporary, it’s just that the technology isn’t as advanced. Nevertheless, it’s good to see that in a contemporary book for a change!) As you could have guessed, Eleanor is having a hard time fitting in with her new peers, and people have been really judging her. She sits beside Park on the bus one day since they both have no one to sit with, and at first, the two don’t really interact, they’re just silent. Then, one day, Park suddenly hands Eleanor one of his comics, and that’s when they start bonding! They start off as friends, but both know that they want something more. Eleanor and Park were both just soooooo sweet, and I agree that they made an amazing couple (I totally ship them😊)! They ignored all the insults coming at them from their disapproving peers and just did what was best for themselves, without conflict, which I loved. Park maybe was a little aggressive, but that was only due to Taekwondo lessons that he had been taking for years, and he only used the karate on the bullies who were tormenting them. I also really enjoyed that there were barely any problems between the couple, and the most conflict there was was about really small things that didn’t really matter in the long run. In many YA romance books, I find that couples tend to have huge fights, break up, and then somehow find their way back to each other by the end of the story, but this book was not like that at all! It was very sweet and light, and it definitely made me really happy! The ending though… it shattered my heart (not going to spoil anything… you should read it if you want to know!). I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a light, nice romance with not too much conflict which isn’t too cliche, because this is THE book!

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars!