Book Review :: Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Published by Orion
on February 26th 2013
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 328
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Two misfits.One extraordinary love.
Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

Last updated on 29 March 2022

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What is Eleanor and Park about?

Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell, is told from two perspectives. Yup, you guessed it: Eleanor’s and Park’s.

Basically, this story is beautiful. Everything about it is brilliant. While it is a story about a slightly larger-than-average red-headed girl with a crazy dress sense and no home life, who falls in love with a half-Korean comic book geek who only wears black…I like to think it’s about every first love. The awkwardness, the silence, the ‘I like you’ kinda vibes, the realisation that the feeling is mutual…all of it.

The characters in this book are fantastic, and not only the two main ones. Park’s parents are brilliant, and play such a key role in Park’s life, and later on Eleanor’s too. While Eleanor’s mum is nuts and really she should just get out of that abusive relationship, she does love her kids and looks out for Eleanor. All the minor characters have their little quirky characteristics, and it’s those little things that make them brilliant and more real, if you like.

The story line is so sweet, and so like high school. I never fell in love in high school (or ever, as of yet), but I was a fantastic observer and witness of teenage love and all it’s glory (or lack thereof)…and guys, it was like this story could have happened in my high school, in your high school…in every high school. I think that’s a part of what makes it great. There’s bullying, and cattiness, and fights…but there’s friendship, and there’s laughter, and there’s love. And that’s pretty darn neat. Eleanor and Park are so so sweet together, and there were so many ‘naaawwww’ moments while reading their story.

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

The way that Eleanor and Park talk about each other, to the reader, is gorgeous and the writing is so well done. If you know your comics, and your music, then you’ll enjoy the references and the things that they talk about…a lot. There were also several Star Wars references, which made me grin too widely and want to re-read the paragraph.

It’s a fast-paced book, not for the events that take place (because, as I think about it, there aren’t very many gigantic events…just sort of everyday life moments), but because you just want to know if they get together, or if Park says such-and-such, or Eleanor does this or that. It draws you and doesn’t spit you out…not even after you’ve finished the very last page.

“You can be Han Solo,” he said… “And I’ll be Boba Fett. I’ll cross the sky for you.”

After raving about this cute-as book, why haven’t I given it 5 stars, then? Well two reasons: 1. the language was rather strong throughout, and at times I thought it unnecessary. 2. It was obvious to me who it was who was the culprit of nasty, mean and gross things being written on Eleanor’s school books throughout the story (a part of the story that was a constant concern and question). But read it. Read it. Read it. Read it.

Have you read Eleanor and Park? What did you think?