Eleanor & Park

I read this after reading 'Fangirl' on a recommendation in Maria Sachiko Cecire's 'Re-enchanted.' I enjoyed the dialogues in 'Fangirl', finding them sharp and witty, so I thought I'd give this a go. It's kind of OK, I suppose, for the young readership it's intended for, but there are issues.

There has been a collective recognition that YA literature - indeed, literature in general - has excluded some voices. Heroes and heroines have been white, middle-class, cis and pretty. In 'Eleanor and Park' Rowell seems to have set out to confront this criticism. Her heroine is fat, freckled and red-headed. Her hero is half-Korean. Eleanor's two best friends are black. The author is obviously trying to write a book that is inclusive.

This doesn't quite come off. As nearly all the characters in the book are close to stereotype - I'm not criticising here ... without stereotype, there is very little fiction - Park, his mother - who is described as doll-like - and the two black girls, DeNice and Beebi, all threaten to collapse into form at times. DeNice is the sharp black girl, Beebi is the big one with the huge smile, and so on.

In the end, I give her cookies for trying, but it's perhaps the case that you can't really deal with race when writing from whiteness. (A lot of authors just pencil in their characters brown and leave it a that: Rowell attempts to go beyond that).


On the love story which is at the centre of the plot, I have to go with this review - www.goodreads.com/review/show/549828838?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1 . Rowell herself seems doubtful; she has her heroine give a rough critique of 'Romeo and Juliette' in which she notes that the star-crossed pair are just too young to have really fallen in love. Then she heaps on sentence after sentence about the feelings that they have for each other, as if she's afraid the reader won't believe her, won't get the message.

The two school bullies, Steve and Tina, are nicely seen; Rowell manages to give them a little depth and the reader can glimpse the children beyond the hulking monsters. The horrors of Eleanor's home are well done, and seem to be drawn from life. Park's ambivalence about his parents' relationship - their love for each other is utterly reassuring, but their love for each other is posited on white male fantasies about Asian women - is neatly placed to make the reader think about why he is drawn to Eleanor.

Rowell is a writer, and she'll write better books than this one.

I am just really sorry to say that I did not like this book. I seem to be one of the few who did not like it, and I am still sad about that.

My main issue was that I couldn't relate at all with the characters. I couldn't read this book without thinking I was reading about 12yo kids. Apparently they are 16yo in the book, but if you are only holding hands, sitting next to each other on the bus reading some comics and barely talking to each other... you can't blame me for thinking they were 12yo, right? When I was 16, I did other things when I was in love. Just saying.

And second: I did not understand what they saw in each other. I didn't like Eleanor. I thought she was frustrating and boring. For a love story, there wasn't enough love for me. I'm sorry.

I'm a tough sell when it comes to YA books. Most of them are too obvious for me to enjoy, either as dystopian hellholes or glossy music videos. But when a friend recommended "Eleanor and Park" to me, I was ready for either hellhole or music video, as long as it was a fast read for a chilly autumn evening.

What I read was a savvy paean to young love between two misfits amidst the myriad land-mines that dot adolescence. Darker issues also lurk in the background of one of our protagonists, but these are written so gracefully that they don't feel like plot devices. (Trigger warnings apply, however; this is not a Hallmark card.)

The most remarkable thing about this remarkable book is that the two protagonists are completely believable human beings that aren't forced to change what makes them unique in order to find acceptance, to find happiness.

I enjoyed every moment of reading this, not least for the nostalgic dip into my own awkward youth in the 1980s. I read it in one sitting, tearing up often and crying wholeheartedly at the ending, which leaves its characters with hope that is neither saccharine nor contrived. This was a beautiful book and I look forward to reading more of Rainbow Rowell's fiction.

Commute audiobook. Not thrilled with either narrator.

I spent the first half of this book rolling my eyes and the second half reluctantly interested. It's a YA romance about first love and it is exactly as melodramatic as you would expect. I think if I were 15 I would have thought this was the Best Book Ever because it's not just ANY first love, it's DEEP, mom and dad, because it's about misfits who like music beyond the Top 40 and one of them is a fat girl. From my current life (ie well beyond adolescence) it's hard to take seriously. At one point Park leans against the wall by Eleanor's locker and I was reminded of Angela Chase being thrilled by Jordan Catalano's great leaning. I have to give this book a little bit of a break because I remember how much I loved My So-Called Life; to this day it feels special, even though I suspect that if I were to watch it for the first time now I would find it tedious. I am not this book's target audience. It doesn't feel fair to hate on the teen romance part of it.

The book got a lot more interesting for me when it started to explore in a lot more detail the families and home lives of Eleanor and Park. The contrast is worth pointing out: they both live in a poor/working-class part of Omaha, but beyond that their lives couldn't be more different. Park has a great family. He doesn't have a lot in common with his dad but the family is close, they love each other, and there's enough money to enjoy themselves sometimes. On balance, they're happy, and Park is lucky.

Eleanor's family is horrifically poor. Her stepfather is abusive and her mother puts up with it. Like many kids in her situation, Eleanor
doesn't know how to talk about it or who to talk about it with; plus, if she were to talk about it, she's smart enough to know that she and her 4 siblings would be split up, which she doesn't want. Part of me was frustrated by the stereotype: single mom who got pregnant in high school, moves from shitty guy to shittier guy, kids end up in horrible abusive situation, as if these consequences of teen pregnancy are inevitable. What about the AWESOME single moms who make it work? What about the kids in families that look perfect from the outside but are actually being abused? But I tried not to let myself be too frustrated--there really are kids in Eleanor's situation and their stories deserve to be heard.

The stepfather is the worst, no question. He hits the mom and is emotionally abusive to the kids and is probably grooming them for sex abuse. I loathe victim-blaming; Eleanor's mom is 100% a victim of this awful man; I am trying to be sympathetic to her; there really are women living like this, afraid to leave, because there's no evidence that life could be better. But I have a hard time being sympathetic when kids are involved. Her kids are there, suffering and abused, because she won't leave. One thing I actually found very satisfying about this book is that it's forced me to think about cycles of abuse, victimization, victim-blaming, and the role of friends and friends' families in supporting the victims.

Is this a great book? Dunno. It might be a great coming of age story in the vein of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower or (I suspect, though I haven't read any) John Green books. But I am the wrong audience to determine that. What I know for sure is that I liked it okay, but having read this (her "best" YA book) and Landline (her much loved and much lauded adult book) and feeling similarly unenthusiastic about both, I am done with Rainbow Rowell. Too many other authors for me to explore who I might like better.

I loved this book.

It actually reminds me a lot of Looking for Alaska.. but better.. and darker...

For a book written in 2012, its very odd to have a book written about 1986. At the same time, there is absolutely no way any of this story could be told in an sort of modern setting.

When I started the book last night, I almost skipped over it. I wasn't really in the mood for a love story. I'm so glad I didn't. It was an emotional rollar coaster, and was exactly what I needed.

Not to spoil anything, but I absolutely adore books and movies that leave the ending up to your own interpretation. Its explicit and vague at the same time. I really don't know how to explain it other than I've already come up with a couple possibilities of what the sentence could me. Its awesome.

I would highly recommend this book to others.