Book Review: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

To begin with, this is not the sort of books I would usually pick out on any given day. I'm not sure if it were in year 3 or year 4 in college that I read this book... (obviously, I was under so much stress and my brain had been fried... I think it's that same year when I decided to give Nicholas Sparks a chance and still managed to read a couple of his books... *smh*). But hey, my friends got me Eleanor & Park, Fangirl and Attachments by Rainbow Rowell for my birthday that year. All in Hardcover! Much love to you guys <3

Holding Eleanor’s hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.

Eleanor is a new girl in school. She has a large family, a broken home and a chaotic life. Park is half Korean half white, he is more subtle, with a nice big house and a stable life. These two meet on the school bus ride. All seats were taken, everyone was staring at Eleanor, making her feel even more awkward than she already felt. Park finally gives in and scooches over for her to take a seat. They ignore each other for around 2 weeks, then they discover each other.

She hadn’t even said anything nice about him. She hadn’t told him that he was prettier than any girl, and that his skin was like sunshine with a suntan.

Eleanor & Park is an innocent love story between two teens in high school. I liked it better than Fangirl (I tried to like that book so hard... I honestly tried... I might update my review on Fangirl sometime later). The emotions in this one are too vibrant and... real?! Yes, E&P were fictional teens, yet their characters seemed a lot more realistic than most of those you would encounter in books!

Eleanor's character felt so out of control... all over the place! Park, on the other hand, I preferred his parts better; he was a lot more reserved than his counterpart (Eleanor) but there was a possibility for more to his character! However, Eleanor was overshadowing him! I just preferred Park over Eleanor but.. it is what it is...

“You saved me life, she tried to tell him. Not forever, not for good. Probably just temporarily. But you saved my life, and now I'm yours. The me that's me right now is yours. Always."

There's an issue that urges mentioning: stereotyping, racism... I tried to ignore those bits while reading because I just wanted to enjoy the story of two oddballs trying to fall for each other. But seriously. I don't even have the energy to recall every little bit that bothered me relating to Asian stereotyping, belittling Park's mom's character, racism, etc... but it doesn't mean that I'm happy with it!

In addition, I'm sure many readers noticed that the flow of the story, the edginess of the characters... the entire vibe of Everything was somewhat... resembling John Green's work! I was a HUGE fan of John Green, following his YT channel, him and Hank. They were a BIG part of my teen years. There's nothing wrong with them now, I just grew out of it lol. Back to my point, yes, there were so many times that I felt I was reading another John Green edgy teen romance... but here's the thing, its a MUCH IMPROVED John Green edgy teen romance! So kudos to you Rainbow!

Eleanor was right: She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.

Short Analysis:

Book cover: (5 stars)

Minimalist doodle art of Eleanor and Park. Perfect!

Writing style: (4 stars)

Rowell's writing skills are like no other! She is able to create realistic characters with realistic and very much engaging relationships and scenes in her books, and it's even more evident here (E&P) than her next book Fangirl. She came through!

Story structure and content: (3.5 stars)

E&P's story is raw and unique, in its own way. Rainbow decided to tell the story from E&P PoVs. It was interesting, yes. But after some time it started getting on my nerves. And the further you are in the story, the more you start realising that a lot of points covered/mentioned by one character, although are very much relating to the other, are not clarified later on
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not into such storylines. There were too many cringe-worthy lines here... You wouldn't see me really gushing over "romantic" gestures and lines in a book... it's just not my thing
Stereotyping was all over the place, and racism was its sidekick in this story
Very much like a John Green edgy romance but slightly improved

Plot: (3.5 stars)

The story of E&P takes place in the year 1986. Eleanor and Park meet on a school bus, they choose to ignore each other for some time.... but then they just click and life turns to this beautiful land rosy chapter in both of their lives. They were really into each other... They were made for each other and they realised that... However... do you believe that this relationship would last long?!
Eleanor and Park are deep characters. Rowell had written them so well, you just could picture them walking out and about. They were old souls in youngsters bodies and were utterly confused... We notice that they have real problems and anyone in the 21st century can somehow relate to them. And as beautiful as their relationship was, it was toxic! The jealousy, the obsessive behaviour, the pain they were both in for each other and because of each other... yeah... red flags much!?
Nevertheless, Rowell shed light on important social issues: bullying, fat-shaming, broken homes, divorce, etc. Imo, she sort of stretched some bits here and there when it wasn't much necessary...
Similarly, there's a lot of stereotyping and racism going on there.... which is quite disappointing
Another issue worth mentioning: as much as I loved the music of the 80s and early 90s, this book is just Testing you (the reader)! It's filled with references from back then: music, jokes, tv shows... I honestly had to look up some of the stuff... it wasn't long that I just got fed up and stopped even bothering to understand. If I get it, I get. If not, too bad -____-" I mean... It's a YA fiction written in 2012, what are you expecting from your audience, Rowell?

Ending: (3.5 stars)

E&P's ending was somewhat perfect. There was a major character development for both Eleanor and Park. But the actual ending was left wide open for the reader to interpret what was written on the postcard Eleanor had sent to Park. Majority of the readers opt for a happier ending where Eleanore had written the "three long words" of "I love you". But who is to know?! I was just too wrecked (schoolwork lol) to even bother to analyse the situation further (and in all honesty, their relationship was too cute, and they've been through a lot! It's only fair for the both of them to confess their love to each other by the end of it...)

Final rating: 3.9 stars /5

E&P is a cute novel I'd read on a weekend. I would actually recommend it! It's a well-written story of two oddballs in high school, trying to make their way through life and the best out of their own (social) situations, together... if that makes sense. Basically, if you're a John Green fan, you'd love this book :)