But she's also willing to try, to keep him as long as she can. She knows more about her own situation, her own homelife, and knows that Park's wish to stay together may not be feasible. Eleanor, especially, knows it might not last. You will always remember your first love, whether you stay together and get married, or split up in a fiery mess. Flying schoolbuses and ear-implanted iPods notwithstanding, it will be like this a decade from now as well.įirst love can be everything. Even though the novel is set in the 80s, it feels timeless. It's a story of the people we surround ourselves with each day, and it brings back many memories of high school. It's a story about families, about classmates, about life. ELEANOR & PARK is a story about relationships, about how we react with one another. Neither one feels good enough for the other, but can't imagine letting go, either. Readers follow along as only-Korean-boy-in-town Park and new-girl Eleanor reluctantly become seatmates on the bus. We make our way through each day, and there isn't always something to set it apart from all of our yesterdays and tomorrows. What makes ELEANOR & PARK (And, in fact, FANGIRL, too, though I'll review that one separately next week) so extraordinary is, in fact, how ordinary it is. Luckily, neither ELEANOR & PARK nor FANGIRL is epistolary in nature, so I was finally able to enjoy Rainbow Rowell's writing without any distractions. This really opened my eyes to the fact that I am not a fan of epistolary writing, though I've struggled with it before this year as well. I also struggled with award-winning/"best of" novels like Stephen Chbosky's THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, Kimberly McCreight's RECONSTRUCTING AMELIA, and Maria Semple's WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE this year. With two books topping so many lists, I knew I had to read Rainbow Rowell's YA novels by the end of the year and see what the fuss was all about! I'd read her adult novel ATTACHMENTS over the summer and didn't love it, so I never got around to her YA novels. So has her second novel, FANGIRL, also released this year. ELEANOR &PARK has won a spot on many of 2013's Best of the Year lists.
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