Hi readers! In the past month, I have been visiting various bookstores (as one does) searching for new books to read this summer. After talking to friends about what books I should check out next, it was suggested that I read a novel by Rainbow Rowell. I hadn’t heard of the author before, but with a first name as awesome as Rainbow I figured it was only appropriate to read all of her books immediately! On my following trip to the bookstore, I gravitated toward the Young Adult section where I found one of her most popular books – Eleanor and Park.
Eleanor and Park takes place in the late 1980’s – in the time of Walkmans and phone cords – and is about two misfit high schoolers who fall in love with each other amidst the chaos of their own lives. I know that it sounds a bit overdone but Rowell’s book is not a typical sad story YA novel; this novel is about falling in love with someone because of who they are personally and intellectually, forgetting about 
physicality or what others think of them. Rowell writes from both perspectives of these two very distinct characters: Eleanor, an overweight girl with wild, curly red hair, incredible sarcasm, and a penchant for eclectic clothes, and Park, a half-Korean, half-Irish kid who loves punk rock and manages to remain on the good side of the popular kids (but at the expense of not being able to share what he really thinks and feels). When these two meet on the bus to school for the first time, it’s anything but love at first sight – Eleanor quickly becomes the target of jokes and ridicule by the popular kids, and Park begrudgingly gives her the seat next to him in order to save them both from the embarrassment of the situation.
Coming into a new high school and being made fun of for the way you look is never an easy thing but Eleanor’s issues go even deeper than being a victim of bullying. Her family is very poor, and her stepfather is an abusive alcoholic whom she tries her best to avoid every day. Through the character of Eleanor, Rowell does a spectacular job giving insight into the hardship of poverty, neglect and abuse.
As I read, I realized Park was an excellent safety for Eleanor – someone to escape to, or someone to bring her out of her every day. He loves her, and he makes it evident – Park is from a family that openly expresses love and supports each other, which is very different from where Eleanor comes from. Eleanor never shares what happens in her home life with Park. She keeps him separate from the danger that looms there. This is what I think makes Eleanor and Park so unlike those cliché knight saves the damsel in distress stories – it is about a love that blossoms between two people in spite of what is going on in the outside world. Despite his ignorance to her situation, Park loves Eleanor for who she is rather than for her circumstance. In so many fairy tales, the prince comes to the rescue not because he loves the princess and her awesome personality, but because she is so obviously in need of saving. That is not this story. Eleanor and Park each have an individual depth, and they love one another because they understand each other in a way that they had never shared with anyone else before. The solace they find in one another is one that reminds the reader to not take what you love for granted and to love with your whole self, regardless of any obstacles or differences that may be in the way.
I hope you pick up this book the next time you go to the store or the library to find something to read. It really is an excellent story, and I highly recommend it.
Have fun this summer, and stay well-read! – Luriel
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