‘Eleanor and Park’ is a young adult novel by Rainbow Rowell. This book is a beautiful depiction of first love. It describes how everything is new and wonderful about first love.
Eleanor and Park are two misfits who fall in love. Will you just fall in love because you read some comics together, listen to some music together or by sharing the same seat in the bus? No, there was something more than that between them. We don’t really know how they fall in love. Even they don’t. They just like everything about each other. As we read through the story we just fall in love with them. We want them to be together, forever. Just like how they are in that moment, perfect!
From the beginning of the story we know it is going to something tragic. We just had to see how tragic it was going to be. No, one of them doesn’t die. But yet it seems more tragic. Even though Park believes in forever, Eleanor doesn’t. She has been through a lot. Life had been so cruel to her that she forgot to hope. Even with Park she felt happy yet she always had the fear of losing him.
The ending..it just hurts so bad. It is a lot of pain. Yes, Park smiles at the end and there is hope but still it hurts a lot. It hurts how Eleanor could just stop. It hurts why they couldn’t try.
‘If they weren’t going to get married – if it wasn’t forever – it was only a matter of time.
They were just going to stop.’
It hurts to know that there is someone out there who can love you forever but you just decide not to pursue that. The fear that it may turn into some ‘stupid high school romance’ as mentioned in the book.
Apart from the beautiful love story the description of the comics and songs by the Smiths, Joy Division and all the punk rock music that they listen to takes it to a whole new level. The next time we listen to them we remember how Eleanor and Park listened to them together.
This book is not a tear jerker it is just a lot of pain. It is a true depiction of hope and its absence. Please find time to read this wonderful novel to get back to your teenage days.
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