Eleanor and Park

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

"Bono met his wife in high school," Park says.

"So did Jerry Lee Lewis," Eleanor answers.

"I’m not kidding," he says.

"You should be," she says, "we’re sixteen."

"What about Romeo and Juliet?"

"Shallow, confused, then dead."

''I love you," Park says.

"Wherefore art thou," Eleanor answers.

"I’m not kidding," he says.

"You should be."

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 meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.

I have wracked my brain all afternoon trying to figure out how to explain how amazingly good this book is. I started this book this morning and I couldn't put it down,  I was finished by 3 this afternoon. I inhaled it and savored every word like it was water after being deprived for days. 

Eleanor is starting a new school after finally being able to come back to live with her mom and step dad. Shes so upset that her brothers and sister call him dad now, because before they were united in their hatred of him. Life in that house is hard, she sleeps in a room with her 4 siblings and there is no door on the bathroom.  Richie (step-dad) eats like a king while the kids barely get any food.  Getting on the bus when you don't know anyone is horrible, I've been there.  People don't want you to sit with them, they don't want you to look and especially don't want you to talk to them. Finally someone takes mercy on her and lets her sit with him but he doesn't talk and she just thinks hes weird. 

Park is neither popular or unpopular, hes in that nether world. Telling the new girl to sit with him might actually kill that invisible-ness he has going for him. Park is half Korean, likes listening to music and reading comic books. He also takes tae kwon do with his dad and brother. He's living the most normal life possible so he can't quite understand why this new girl is so weird, she dresses funny and is just different. One day while riding the bus he notices that she is reading his comic book with him so he decides to read slower so she can read along with him.  He starts bringing comics for her to read on her own and slowly they start to have actual conversations but they are hushed so no one can hear them and thus making the hell she lives in his problem or worse for her. 

Eleanor and Park are so good together it was scary how fast, once they started talking, they became so close.  Eleanor starts telling her mother that she is at a friends house in the afternoons so that she can hang out with Park at his house.  At first his mother doesn't get why he's dating her, she doesn't wear make up, she dresses like a boy and is just awkward.  Then after seeing the family out at the grocery store something clicks for Park's mom and she just knows that there are underlying reasons for Eleanor being so different. 

I swear I could write a book about all the amazing things that happened in this book but I will just say, read it. The last few chapters moved me to tears and I loved every single word of this story. Like Eleanor said “I just want to break that song into piece and love them all to death.” For me its this story, I just want to break it into pieces and hold them close.