Book Review: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Eleanor & Park

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publication Date: February 26th, 2013

Genre(s): Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Format: Hardback

Pages: 325 pages

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed misfits - smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meet Park, you'll remember your own first love - and just how hard it pulled you under.

At first, I just watching bunch of booktubers raving about this book. They loved it, and I searched this book on goodreads, and first comment that popped on my head was, "That was a cute cover!"and the synopsis really grabbed me at "you'll remember your own first love". That words really made me want to read this book and I wanted that cute book cover in my bookshelf. So, I'm at the mall and there's a bookstore which sell some english books, I browsed the shelves and they didn't have that much young adult fiction novels and Eleanor & Park was there all alone with this cute hardback cover and I just grabbed it (even though it cost me about US $23 and I don't really care).

I have a big expectation for this book. I opened the book, and there's an epilogue (I guess) which is sort of the conclusion of the story. This story is not like ordinary young adult contemporary novels where the characters are good looking popular girls in high school or good looking guy and all that jazz, and this story doesn't have a happy ending (SPOILER!). Our main characters are Eleanor, with her red curly hair and fat (quite similar to the author herself, except for the red hair), and Park, asian boy who loves to read comic books. The story told on third person and switched between Eleanor's perspective and Park's perspective. This kind of writing really reminds me of Flipped movie, where we get to know what each of them thinking of a particular scene. It's fascinating because when you were young you thinking much about everything and I bet that girl's thought were quite different with boy's thought.

Another interesting things is the relationship between Eleanor and Park which (indeed) brought you back when you were experiencing love for the first time ever. I felt connected with these characters so I got these happy and sad feelings when I read this book. And this story isn't about the Eleanor and Park relationship but also their relationship with their own family and how their relationship with their family could make things worse. I also love how this book represent the real love where not everything goes right.

The storyline is set in 1986 which is reminds me of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I know that Ready Player One isn't really in 80's, but the book set on 2044 when everything in 80's come back to life and there's a lot of info dump. I feel like this book is timeless, like it doesn't have to be happened in 1986. Sometimes I forgot if the story is set in 1986.

Anyway, this is a great young adult contemporary novel. I gave it 5 out of 5 stars. I really recommended this book to everyone. I kept thinking about this book while I'm not reading it, and that's how I loved it so much. I hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as I did. 

Happy reading! :)

-Nikita