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Loading... Eleanor and Parkby Rainbow Rowell
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» 24 more Books Read in 2014 (38) Books Read in 2016 (1,428) Books Read in 2015 (1,147) Books Read in 2019 (1,738) Overdue Podcast (264) Female Author (921) Books Read in 2013 (1,342) SantaThing 2014 Gifts (166) Racial identity (2) READ IN 2020 (78) Struggle for Freedom (40) Books Tagged Abuse (74) Summer Books (34) New Adult Books (1) No current Talk conversations about this book. ![]() ![]() This book perfectly captures teen romance and angst. Is that a good thing? Yes. Does that mean I liked it? Eh. This had nothing to do with Rowell's writing, in fact she did a really good job capturing the feel of teenage emotions and insecurity. I loved that she incorporated music and comic books as a way for Eleanor & Park to bond and start their whirlwind romance. The feelings and love may have been quick after that however their teenagers, teenagers are delicate and emotional. Their hormones make them insecure about their appearance, which make them emotionally insecure which translates to romantically insecure, so when they find someone to bond with they immediately latch on, and I saw that in Rowell writing. It wasn't instalove, more like a quick love that rollercoastered. Honestly, I am just too old for the book to have any emotional effect. My favorite parts were when she incorporated music and comic books because I remember them from when I was young and knew exactly what she was talking about. Good ol' nostalgia. Another thing I like was that the ending was not predictable. On the first page it lead me to believe one thing, and I kept reading with the intention of the book turning out a certain way, but it didn't and I like that. While it did mention some racial issues, which Park being Asian American during the 80s and all, it seems like she sugar coated what could have been a really been something big. I am a product of a Bi-racial relationship so I know the tensions that can come with a relationship like that, add on bullying and the other issues presented in this book and wow this could have turned into something supremely meaningful. I can fault Rowell however, since can authors really completely understand and writing about things they have not encountered in their life? Overall this is a YA book, and I think any young adult would love it which why this book is so popular. So if you’re a Young Adult go ahead and read this. Tell me what you think Eleanor is the new girl at school, who’s quiet and who dresses weird and whom everyone calls Big Red because of her hair and her weight. Park is a fairly popular kid with a fairly normal life. Their two very different worlds come together when Park scoots over to make room for Eleanor on the bus one morning. They slowly become sort-of friends, and then more-than friends. But Eleanor is difficult to get close to, because her homelife is awful: shitty mom, shitty dad, and even shittier stepdad. Because of them, she doesn’t even have a toothbrush, not to mention the capacity to believe in the good in other people. When Eleanor can hardly believe that Park could possibly like her, and when Park feels much the same about her, how can such a relationship be anything but doomed? It was…okay. I think my reading of it suffered from hearing so much hype about it for so long. I was expecting miraculous and instead got a good, but not exceptionally so, YA romance. Yes, Eleanor’s story is important representation, and yes, I suspect that if I had read it when I was in junior high I would have had heart eyes for it, but now the romance bit was just too heavy handed for me. So, I think it’s probably spot on for its intended audience, but it’s not a YA that carries over well to older audiences (or at least this particular member of said audience).
I have never seen anything quite like “Eleanor & Park.” Rainbow Rowell’s first novel for young adults is a beautiful, haunting love story — but I have seen those. It’s set in 1986, and God knows I’ve seen that. There’s bullying, sibling rivalry, salvation through music and comics, a monstrous stepparent — and I know, we’ve seen all this stuff. But you’ve never seen “Eleanor & Park.” Its observational precision and richness make for very special reading. Is contained inHas as a supplementAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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