Eleanor and Park

Let's face it. There are tons of books about love out there. And most of them are terrible. Sure, they might be engaging, and heartwarming, and satisfying, and all that jazz, but almost none of them really tell it how it is. My brother often complains that books like this keep real life nice guys from getting girls, because these girls are too caught up on Edward or Darcy and therefore have unrealistic views about love. Then along comes Eleanor and Park (by Rainbow Rowell). At the outset this book seems like it's going to fall squarely into the category of books mentioned above. It's about a slightly chubby redheaded stepchild (literally) named Eleanor who ends up falling in love with her bus buddy, a half-Korean, semi-popular kid named Park. They bond over comic books and punk rock, and have what I consider to be the best fictional romance I've ever read. And when I say best all I mean is that it felt real. The novel captured all the wonderful things about love: the first hand-hold, the first kiss, the excitement of seeing your crush in unexpected places, the constant longing when they're not around, the need to get as much as possible when you're with them. However, E&P also addresses the less glamorous, and in my experience far more common, elements of romance. The constant doubt, anxiety, and jealousy that come with being in a relationship. Perpetual fretting about whether the person can possibly like you as much as you like them. The frustration of finding that there are still parts of a person's life that they want to keep private. The shame, selfishness, misunderstanding, anger, and worry that inevitably come with being in love. Like being in love, this book was both wonderful and disappointing. The reader develops a bond with the book that is reflective of the bond between E&P. It's good, but it's also a bit punishing. The novel is told from both Eleanor's and Park's perspective, a narrative choice that reveals how every insecurity that one party brings to a relationship is likely echoed by the other. It also demonstrated how wrong we can be about other people and ourselves. Being a guy I sometimes struggled to understand Eleanor's thinking (proving that women are, indeed, crazy), but this novel helped me better understand the mindset that contributed to many of my previous romantic frustrations. Now of course, this is a young adult novel, and so it has the obligatory broken home, domestic violence, verbal abuse, alcoholism, and teen angst. However, these banal elements do not sufficiently compromise the originality or integrity of the novel so as to render it unworthy. This novel perfectly captures what first love is like, but doesn't shy away from the painful truth that first love almost never lasts. It embraces that fact, and explores the intricacies of real love without drowning itself in a sea of sappy metaphors or make-out sessions. I enjoyed it, and I think anyone who can stand a little romantic disillusionment will as well.

Score: 8/10
Read this book if: You need a reminder that love, like life, is never perfect. Also if you're just looking for a little tug at the old heart strings. And possibly if you liked 500 Days of Summer, though that's not a guarantee (there are similarities, but they're also wildly different in tone and content).
Don't read this book if: You don't like reading foul language (cursing abounds, though no graphic content is present), you only go in for happy endings (you shouldn't be reading any young adult lit in that case), or you have no tolerance for a story driven more by characters than by plot.

Thirteen Reasons Why

I'm just gonna come out and say it. I didn't enjoy reading this book. The story was implausible, the writing was choppy, the characters were unrealistic, and it was depressing as all get out. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, tells the story of Clay--a high school kid who mysteriously receives a collection of audio tapes from Hannah, a peer who had committed suicide weeks earlier. The tapes were sent to thirteen people who had a hand in her decision to kill herself. The novel follows Clay through one sleepless night as he listens to the tapes and visits the locations they describe in some sort of twisted scavenger hunt, all the while emotionally berating himself for not having done more to help Hannah. All in all this novel felt like it was trying too hard to fit in with the (typically grim and gritty) genre of young adult literature by tackling head on the most damaging issues youth face. While I certainly appreciate novels that deal with troubling issues, I prefer them to take a slightly more hopeful tack. This novel lacked that redemptive quality, and therefore left me feeling unfulfilled. The conclusion of the novel does offer some sense of closure and optimism, but it can scarcely pull the book out of the morass of self-loathing that comprises its bulk. Yet despite my misgivings I couldn't stop reading it. I stayed up until 4a.m. to finish it. Despite being bleak and miserable, the novel is compelling. Furthermore, I realize that not every story in real life has a happy ending. Sometimes the troubled teen really does choose to end it all. Sometimes young love doesn't pan out. Sometimes we have to live with always wondering "could I have stopped her?" I feel that this novel is addressed more at well-adjusted kids who have friends who may be contemplating suicide, and it does a good job of inviting the reader to think about how our choices effect others both for good and (more frequently, in the case of this novel) for bad. For these reasons I feel this novel does have worth. However, my ultimate qualm with the book isn't its tone, but its lack of originality. Basically if you put Speak and Looking for Alaska in a blender, added just a dash of The Catcher in the Rye, and pressed liquefy, you'd end up with Thirteen Reasons Why. I don't regret having read the book, and I think it's a valuable reminder to us all of the importance of reaching out to others, but if I were to recommend a book to a teenager this would be far from the first thing I'd pull from the shelf.

Score: 6/10
Read this book if: You feel like depressing yourself and wondering about how many people in your life you may have helped drive to an early grave. Also if you need a reminder of why we should be nice to others.
Don't read this book if: You like books that make you happy, or you have access to anything written by John Green, Lois Lowry, J.K. Rowling, or Laurie Halse Anderson. They're better written, and deal with similar issues (okay, maybe not J.K., but her awesomeness overcomes a multitude of shortfalls).