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Eleanor & Park

Rainbow Rowell

Start date: July 1, 2014

Finish date: July 31, 2014

Discussion: Stand Alones

Why we're reading this: Won the July Standalone BOTM
[close] Won the July Standalone BOTM

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Stand Alones

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What Members Thought

Jan 10, 2014 Joanna Wiebe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-favorites

Rarely do I find a book I can't put down. The last time was "The Hunger Games" -- so it's been a while.

(I'm one of those naughty readers that stops reading two chapters in. That's 100% my bad. I miss out on a lot of great books because of that. But I digress.)

A week after reading this book, I'm still thinking about it. The night I finished it, I went for dinner with my hub, and all I could talk about was this book. (He hadn't read it. I convinced him he must.) How lucky is Eleanor. How lucky i ...more

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Dec 06, 2013 Arbaaz Khan rated it really liked it

Okay, so this is what i have to tell you about this book: if you don't like cheesy romantic stories about teenagers in love for the first time, don,t read it. But if you don't care about any of that, and if you want good characters and great plot development and character development, you will love this book. I was gonna give this book 3 stars because first of all, i thought it was a bit predictable, at first, but the end changed it all. All the emotions of the characters and the final line was ...more

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Dec 06, 2013 Myrah rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya, romance, hyped, absolutely-loved, interesting, touching, made-me-cry, fiction, funny, high-school

The story started out a bit slow.
But it kept interesting as i kept reading.

Eleanor and Park are two misfits.

Their lovestory was heartwarming and soo unconventional.

There were some really cute moments in this book.
Some made me laugh. some left me teary eyed.

this book captures the essence of Teenage love.
The end was surprising and good, amazing !!

Overall it was a good book.. ♥

Some of my favorites lines from the book are :-

Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly..Or a heartbeat.
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Jun 11, 2019 Teenage Reads rated it liked it

Shelves: books-i-own, 2019

Plot:
Eleanor was home. Well at least with her mother and siblings again. Eleanor’s mother has movie star looks, but a terrible taste in men. Thus, why Eleanor has Richie, her new step-dad that she hated, and one that her mother always defended. Eleanor had her siblings on her side, but then Richie kicked her out. After living at her mother’s friend’s house for months, Eleanor was finally able to go back to Richie’s house, and her personal hell. To start her first day at a new school, involved ge Plot:
Eleanor was home. Well at least with her mother and siblings again. Eleanor’s mother has movie star looks, but a terrible taste in men. Thus, why Eleanor has Richie, her new step-dad that she hated, and one that her mother always defended. Eleanor had her siblings on her side, but then Richie kicked her out. After living at her mother’s friend’s house for months, Eleanor was finally able to go back to Richie’s house, and her personal hell. To start her first day at a new school, involved getting on the full school bus, with someone in every seat. Almost getting into a fight with the back-of-the-bus-kids, Eleanor was saved when the quite half-Asian kid yelled at her and told her to sit down next to him. Not touching, and barely breathing, was how Eleanor and Park's friendship began.
Park knew to keep his head low. The back-of-the-bus kids did not bother him as he was their childhood neighbor. Tina, the head girl, seemed to still have a crush on him, plus his mom, Mindy, ran hair salon out of their garage. There was no way he could not notice Eleanor when she got on the bus. Funny clothing that does not match, big puffy red hair, and she was big boned to boot, it was like staring into a stoplight. Or, to Park, staring at the most beautiful sunset in the world. When he notices Eleanor reading his comic book over his shoulder, he started to turn the pages more slowly, and then started leaving his old copies on the seat for Eleanor to take home for the night. When she had quotes from The Smiths on her notebook but did not know who they were, Park made her a tape recorder of their best songs. Refusing the tape because she had no way to play it, Park gave her his Walkman and headphones, insisting she needed to hear the music. That was how their friendship started, then their relationship of young love that was not supposed to last. With growing difficulties at Park’s home and even more trouble between Eleanor and Richie, these two young lovers use their extraordinary love to set each other free.
Thoughts:
Honestly would rather this book be Park & Park because where Park was the sweetest boy alive, Eleanor was exactly as Park described her as not being a nice person. However, Rainbow Rowell does have a thing for in-depth characters. With a point of view happening from both Eleanor and Park, making it clearly stating who is talking, switching at chapters point or sometime in between, this story, in general, have a lot of depth. On side one we have Park, and his relationship with his family and grandparents, to whom he is to the other school children, his friends, to Eleanor, and about himself. Where the Elanor family is completely dysfunctional, Park’s is a bit too, with his father that does not get him, and a mother who only wants what she thinks is best for him. On the other side of the spectrum is Eleanor, whose mother wants the best for her, which involves Eleanor not being like her. Eleanor’s character was harsh, untrusting, which is understandable given her past, but sometimes she was just straight up mean and rude to Park, who did not deserve that. With the ending of the book being Eleanor using Park and his great love for her, instead of the love, they shared for each other, Eleanor just seemed like a user who did not care about Park despite what Rowell wrote. With awesome retro reminders as this book takes place in 1986, this book deserves all of its praise, even if Eleanor is a terrible character. This book is honestly worth the read because of all its hype, and Park is one of the sweetest boys in the world, despite the terrible choice in girls he has. ...more

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