Eleanor & Park- Rainbow Rowell
St. Martin’s Press
Book Review By Gemma E Mclaughlin
I feel as though there is something uniquely important about this review. I have read this one previously and as I write this all I can think about is picking it up again and losing myself in Rainbow Rowell’s words all over again. ‘Eleanor & Park’ gave me hope for so many things; for love, for friendship and myself. It is the reason I am so deeply enchanted by the genre of romance and why my standards for books of that sort are so unreasonably high.
The story follows Eleanor and Park, two teenagers in the 80s who have found themselves as outcasts for different reasons. Park had mastered being invisible, he got himself through each day, had a few friends and sat alone on the bus, unnoticed, and perfectly content with that. When he met Eleanor, she seemed to make an effort to stand out, like she wanted to be made fun of, didn’t care even slightly about all the negative attention he put so much into avoiding. They soon found themselves sitting next to each other on the bus, barely speaking at first, but finding this genuine, beautiful companionship in each other.
The relationship Eleanor and Park have with each other is subtle and tender at its very core. They’re gentle with each other, understanding in a way that makes the reader long to be known the way they know each other. Every word makes you feel, not quite as though you’re relating to the characters but more as though you know them. The book feels the way it should feel to love someone, you see the way they treat each other, think about each other, and everything fades into that. A lot of the themes in the story are serious and heavy at times, enough to make you throw down the book and cry for people you’ll never have the chance to meet. Although I had some moments of difficulty while reading it, everything about this novel is worth that.
The book is written from the perspective of both Eleanor and Park. I always enjoy a book written in that style as it makes it a lot more difficult to get bored of reading the same person’s thoughts all through but this one is a little different. The perspective can shift at any given time, creating a fascinating structure and effect to the book that I never see. I couldn’t have imagined reading just a few lines, sometimes one, from each character would be so powerful and yet I’ve found myself wishing more books did it.
I would recommend this book to anyone who doesn’t think they like romance. I promise it will prove you wrong in ways that you would have never thought possible.
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