Review: ELEANOR & PARK by Rainbow Rowell

ELEANOR &PARK has won many awards, as has her second YA novel, FANGIRL, both of which came out within six months of one another. With two books topping so many lists, I knew I had to read Rainbow Rowell's YA novels and see what the fuss was all about! I'd read her adult novel ATTACHMENTS over the summer and didn't love it, so I never got around to her YA novels. But that's absolutely a "me" issue. I struggle with epistolary novels. I also struggled with award-winning novels like Stephen Chbosky's THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, Kimberly McCreight's RECONSTRUCTING AMELIA, and Maria Semple's WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE last year. This really opened my eyes to the fact that I am not a fan of epistolary writing, though I've struggled with it before this year as well. Luckily, neither ELEANOR & PARK nor FANGIRL is epistolary in nature, so I was finally able to enjoy Rainbow Rowell's writing without any distractions.

What makes ELEANOR & PARK (And, in fact, FANGIRL, too, though I'll review that one another time) so extraordinary is, in fact, how ordinary it is. How everyday. Life is mundane. We make our way through each day, and there isn't always something to set it apart from all of our yesterdays and tomorrows. Rowell captures this balance well. Readers follow along as only-Korean-boy-in-town Park and new-girl Eleanor reluctantly become seatmates on the bus. Slowly, slooowly become friends. Become something more. Become everything. It's real. It's honest. Neither one feels good enough for the other, but can't imagine letting go, either. ELEANOR & PARK is a story about relationships, about how we react with one another. It's a story about first love. It's a story about families, about classmates, about life. It's a story of the people we surround ourselves with each day, and it brings back many memories of high school. Even though the novel is set in the 80s, it feels timeless. High school is still like this now. It was like this a decade ago. Flying schoolbuses and ear-implanted iPods notwithstanding, it will be like this a decade from now as well.

First love can be everything. It can be nothing. You will always remember your first love, whether you stay together and get married, or split up in a fiery mess. You will always remember. Eleanor and Park are very grounded. They know this is first love. Eleanor, especially, knows it might not last. She knows more about her own situation, her own homelife, and knows that Park's wish to stay together may not be feasible. But she's also willing to try, to keep him as long as she can. Rowell weaves a very balanced, logical view of teenage love as well as she does careless, breathless moments that are easy to get swept away in.

What I like most about the novel is how human everyone is. Teenagers--and even adults--are so focused on themselves and what they are going through that they can't comprehend someone else's POV. In ELEANOR & PARK, we get both sides. Eleanor may be thinking,

And Eleanor couldn't even think strategy, because all she could think about was Park's hands on her waist and her back and her stomach--which all must feel like nothing he'd ever encountered. Everyone in Park's family was skinny enough to be in a Special K commercial. Even his grandma.

Eleanor could only be in that scene where the actress pinches an inch, then looks at the camera like the world is going to end.

Actually, she'd have to love weight to be in that scene. You could pinch an inch--or two, or three--all over Eleanor's body. You could probably pinch an inch on her forehead.

Holding hands was fine. Her hands weren't a complete embarrassment. And kissing seemed safe because fat lips are okay-and because Park usually closed his eyes.

But there was no safe place on Eleanor's torso. There was no place from her neck to her knees where she had any discernable infrastructure.

As soon as Park touched her waist, she'd sucked in her stomach and pitched forward. Which led to all the collateral damage ... which made her feel like Godzilla. (But even Godzilla wasn't fat. He was just ginormous.)

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