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.