Park likes to blend in. He's weird enough without anything else adding to it. So of course it couldn't get any worse when the weird new girl sits next to him on the bus. She's loud, in appearance if not in words. Between her bright red impossibly curly hair, her eclectic clothing, and abundant curves, it's hard not to notice her. Park doesn't want any of this. Not the notice he gets from her sitting next to him, or the feelings he gets when he can't stop thinking about her.
Eleanor only wants to lay low, to make it through the hell they call high school and the even worse hell she calls home. She didn't think that the weird angry Asian kid she sat next to on the bus would become the one thing that would get her through each day.
Can something hold together that seemed impossible from the start? Neither of them know, but they have to try.
Eleanor & Park is the third novel I have read by Rowell, the independent stories of Fangirl and Attachments preceding it. As with my other experiences reading Rowell, I was blown away by this novel. I almost feel like the experience was even more profound because for whatever reason I didn't want to give this novel credit. From the outside it looked like just your typical love story, but of course it was so much more than that. It only took the first few pages to know that there was no way I could put this novel down. If it weren't for “responsibilities” (I mean who really needs to work right?), I would have read it in one sitting. There is something about Rowell's storytelling that speaks volumes about humanity, life, and the human heart. She takes stories and characters that could be utterly mundane and makes them so real and interesting that the reader can't help but be swept away. As I've so poetically put it before, she could write about dirt and I'd be hanging onto every word while proclaiming it art.
This novel firmly falls under the genre of Literary YA and it lives up to the name. It is the beauty of first love mixed with the gritty heartbreaking circumstances surrounding a life of neglect and abuse. Of all the books Rowell has done, this so far has been the darkest in theme and content. It really makes the reader think. The story is rife with stereotypes that Rowell then turns on their head. The characters are not all good or all bad. The main protagonists are clearly flawed, many faceted. It makes all of it so much more real and beautiful. It makes it all that much more sad. It very much brought to mind the style of John Hughes films such as The Breakfast Club, especially considering that this story is set in the 80s.
Along the same lines, Park and Eleanore are perfectly imperfect as main characters. They are young and flawed. They do stupid things and make bad decisions. They are also beautifully kind and wonderfully loving. This exists in both of them, not at odds, but harmoniously. They are as atypical as characters get, right down to their physical descriptions. Everyone in the book, including Park, considers Eleanor at least chubby, if not downright fat. Yet from his eyes she is beautiful, the only girl ever to make him feel anything. Eleanor can't begin to see herself they way he sees her. And it goes the same for him. Too effeminate, too Korean, Park never feels like he is enough. But he is more than enough for Eleanor, even if she is afraid to say it out loud. I cannot say how refreshing it was to read a book where the main characters are in turn overweight and of ethnicity. This is so important in giving voice to a minority, for making guys who are slight and sensitive get the girl of their dreams, for showing girls who aren't a size 0-2 that they are capable of being the main protagonist of a story. In today's society this message is one that can't be said enough. The fact that when you look for fan art for this book most of it downplays if not completely negates Eleanor's weight is direct proof of how bad it actually is. We need more characters like Eleanor and Park.
Another part of this book that was done brilliantly was the fashion of narration. Rowell has the point of view bounce back and forth between Park and Eleanor, sometimes every other paragraph or line. In doing so it is almost like reading two stories at once. Every scene is doubled. The reader gets to see and feel every side. Narration like that would have to be very delicately put together, but Rowell does it beautifully, each part flowing effortlessly back and forth but still remaining distinctive to the individual characterization.
*SPOILERS*
One of the only things from this book I wasn't wholly impressed with was the ending. It was too open ended for my tastes. I know some people like that, but not me. I'm a lazy reader and mostly I like having the ending given to me. I'm too much of a cynic to let myself wholly imagine that it all worked out, even if that is the insinuation. This however wasn't enough for me to change my mind about how awesome this book was so only .1 off for the dreaded “open end”. I recommend it to any and all, as well as anything else Rowell writes. I myself am particularly looking forward to reading her newest novel Landline that was published earlier this month.
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