Review : Eleanor & Park

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Genre : Contemporary, Romance,
Pages: 328
Published February 26th 2013 by St. Martin's Press

Synopsis:

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.

Review:

Eleanor has a big family with little money, with an alcoholic step father and a mother who doesn't always seem to be quite there any more for her kids. Meanwhile Park comes from a nice little family with family who cares and everything they could possibly need. The two come from different worlds and still managed to slowly but surly fall for each other.

“I just can’t believe that life would give us to each other,’ he said, ‘and then take it back.’

‘I can,’ she said. ‘Life’s a bastard.” 

Now that's not all of what this book is about if I told you that would be spoiling the book and I don't want to do that to you readers. I found myself enjoying the book more then I thought that I would. I loved how caring Eleanor was when it came to her siblings making sure things were well for them when the parents really wasn't worry much. I hate that her mother let those kids go through what they were going through. Which leads me to that ending, I wished there were more to the story of what happens to the father or the family in general but at least Eleanor made it out ok. ... Wait is that a spoiler? I'm not entirely sure. Sorry if it is.

“If you can’t save your own life, is it even worth saving?” 

I liked how this book turned out it wasn't just some cheesy romance, of falling instantly in love and everything turning out perfectly with a great little HEA. If you are looking for that type of book then don't even bother buying, or borrowing this book. This book can be described as sweet funny and just sad. To me these characters, both Elenore and Park, felt real and relatable. There wasn't such a thing as perfect in this book and I liked that. Even though I wished for another ending I liked how it turned out. Overall this was a great story and I really loved it.

4.5 Stars.