From the Bookshelf of YAholics Anonymous!…

Eleanor & Park

Rainbow Rowell

Start date: December 1, 2013

Finish date: December 31, 2013

Discussion: Group Read

Why we're reading this: Contemporary Group Read
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Sep 21, 2013 Katherine rated it liked it

”’You can be Han Solo, and I’ll be Bobo Fett. I’ll cross the sky for you.’”

Le sigh. I’m beginning to wonder whether or not I’ll ever like an overhyped book. It always seems that I never do, despite what the general populations makes it out to be. And unfortunately for me, this book turned into yet another overhyped book that I was totally underwhelmed by.

Park Sheridan is not one who would usually be seen with the likes of Eleanor Douglas. The new girl in school, she squashes every single ste ”’You can be Han Solo, and I’ll be Bobo Fett. I’ll cross the sky for you.’”

Le sigh. I’m beginning to wonder whether or not I’ll ever like an overhyped book. It always seems that I never do, despite what the general populations makes it out to be. And unfortunately for me, this book turned into yet another overhyped book that I was totally underwhelmed by.

Park Sheridan is not one who would usually be seen with the likes of Eleanor Douglas. The new girl in school, she squashes every single stereotype of what it means to be attractive, with her big, frizzy red hair, "chunkiness" and obscure fashion choices.

”She had too much of everything and too little height to hide it.”

So Park is mortified when he has to let her sit by him on the bus. But then, the unthinkable happens; they fall in love.

Don’t be fooled by the cute looking cover either, or the nicely drawn fan art you see on Pinterest. HAHAHA, you think you’re signing up for another YA romantic comedy, huh? Well, this book will rip out your heart, drop kick it to the nearest galaxy, and then return the battered remains to you like everything’s OK. This book is dark and real as fuck. There’s cussing, there’s explicit sexual talk, there’s bullying, abuse, racism, and fat shaming. But you know what? We need YA books like that. In this day and age, I think people are getting real tired of contemporary books making the world (and their protagonist’s) cookie cutter good like something out of a 1950s TV show. We want real, we want raw, we want unapologetically unique and fucked up characters. And in that sense, this book delivers.

Eleanor Douglas is everything a YA female protagonist isn’t. She’s curvy, has big hair, clothes that barely pass as decent. She’s so different from the typical skinny, average looking YA girl with brown hair and reed thin physique that it’s almost laughable. But nothing about Eleanor is laughable. She alternately takes pride in being different while at the same time wanting more than what she’s given.

”He got why Eleanor tried so hard to look different. Sort of. It was because she was different- because she wasn’t afraid to be. There was something really exciting about that. He liked being near that kind of brave and crazy.”

Eleanor is a tale of contradiction. She could alternately be a badass while also be so easily embarrassed that she would rather crawl in a hole, lock the hole with a key, and throw away the hole. I suspect she had anxiety, though it was explicitly named.She’s needy, she’s anxious, and extremely self-conscious.

”Eleanor wasn’t… nice. She was good. She was honorable. She was honest. Park’s mom liked nice. She loved nice. She liked smiling and small talk and eye contact… All things Eleanor sucked at.”

Her home life is shitty and there’s never enough of anything to go around. Her ‘stepfather’ hates her and feeling is mutual for her, except everyone else in her family tolerates it. In short, her life is a mess.

”’You always ask that. Why. Like there’s an answer for everything. Not everybody has your life, you know, or your family. In your life, things happen for reasons. People make sense. But that’s not my life. Nobody in my life makes sense.”

But one admirable quality about her is that she makes the most of it, even when the shit piles up so high the septic pumpers have to come out.

And much like Eleanor, Park Sheridan is another tale of contradictions and misfits. Half-white and half-Asian, he doesn’t exactly fit into white-as-Wonder bread Omaha, Nebraska. As far as he knows, he’s probably the only Asian in the entire town.

”She was pretty sure he was Asian. It was hard to tell. He had green eyes and skin the color of sunshine through honey. Maybe he as Filipino. Was that Asian? Probably. Asia’s out-of-control huge.”

He’s even a misfit at home. His father wants his son to be into cars, tae-kwon-do, and sports. But Park ain’t having any of that. He’d rather be reading his comic books and listening to the latest punk rock band than be even remotely active. Despite this, he generally gets along with everyone at school. But then Eleanor arrives and disrupts his entire mojo. Park could be a hard character to like at first, considering how shitty he treats Eleanor in the beginning. But the sucker grew on me, since he could be genuinely sweet at the right exact times. A loyal friend (but occasionally flawed boyfriend), Park is an excellent example of what character redemption looks like.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘Katherine, you were so wishy-washy about this in your opening but you’ve been nothing but nice so far in your review. What was your problem with it, anyways?’ Well, everything was going swimmingly, until Park decides to hold Eleanor’s hand. And everything just about fell apart.

”As soon as he touched her, he wondered how he’d gone this long without doing it.”

Eleanor Douglas and Park Sheridan separately are fine.

Eleanor Douglas and Park Sheridan together are a disaster.

”When I see you on Monday morning, it’s been like sixty hours since I’ve taken a breathe All I do when we’re apart is think about you, and all I do when we’re together is panic.”

A disaster because of how quickly they fall into an obsession with each other. I don’t know if the author did this on purpose to make fun of the instalove/instaobsession cliché (in which case, it was very clever), but it got nauseating to read about, especially when they come up with God awful metaphors such as this.

”His eyes were so green, they could turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.”

I had to read this sentence about ten times, and I still don’t get what it means. I even looked it up on the freakin’ internet, and THE INTERNET DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT.It also almost seemed like the writing went downhill whenever those two were together romantically. I don’t get it, but maybe readers will.

After putting finishing this book, I honestly asked myself what made it so special? For those who read it, loved it, marked their favorite quotes in it, made beautiful artwork out of it.

”She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice, it was supposed to make you feel something.”

Maybe it was because for once, someone wrote a story where two underdogs who normally would have been sidekick characters in a typical YA novel got the spotlight this time; to have their own story. Maybe it was because Rainbow Rowell unapologetically wrote about very real problems that very real teens face, even though this is set thirty years into the past. And for that I’m so glad. However for me, it was hard to get past the occasionally clunky writing, eye-roll inducing instalove, and really bad metaphors for me to love this book. ...more

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Jul 27, 2014 Marija *Why you mad, why you sad* rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-own, favorites

I wanted to like this book and I wanted to hate this book. I wanted to finish this book and I wanted to keep reading it forever. It was a really sweet book, and I could identify with both Eleanor and Park. Though that ending made me want to tear it apart and cry. Please, someone tell me that they're going to meet again!!!!

I was really sick these last few days (it seems something bad always happens on my birthday. At least to me). I could barely keep my eyes open but I still kept reading, even th ...more

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Jan 17, 2014 Silvia Meadows rated it really liked it

4.5 ✰'s

Um, No! Where's the rest of the book? I know that it just didn't end like this did it. I mean, what the heck? That's not a way to end the story. I didn't get enough Eleanor and Park. I need more Eleanor and Park. For one, because I enjoyed remembering how weird and awkward it was to like somebody and how weird and awesome and freaky your first time is for like everything. This book definitely touched a special place in my heart.

Again.... I do not appreciate this ending. 3 words.... that c ...more

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Jan 15, 2014 Fitkum Kumala rated it liked it

this book proved that it is possible to like and curse a book at the same time. oh my, this weird feeling.
the characters and the ending are too realistic it hurts. eleanor is smart which make it hurts more. but i like the writer for keeping it all realistic.

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