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.