Definitely a must-read for romance lovers. There are a couple of moments where she shows some insecurity about her body, but it felt natural, the way we all have those moments. It wasn’t really a focal issue in the story. That it wasn’t like “oh, hey, if I dress cool and lose weight so I look like other girls, I’ll land this cute boyfriend.” She stayed herself, and that was exactly who Park loved. I liked that Eleanor didn’t reinvent herself in the story. The important parts of their relationship weren’t the physical things that happened between them. We get the setup and then maybe a summary sentence or two that kind of just lets us know things happened.

I also really liked that though there’s some romantic content between Eleanor and Park, Rowell doesn’t give us the play by play report of everything that happened. I loved when the characters surprised me, and the ways those surprises made so much sense. Even Eleanor’s relationships with her family members and the relationships with the peripheral characters carried their own weight and had this organic feeling to them. I loved that none of the relationships felt clichéd or simplistic. The relationship between him and his dad? So good. I love his passion, his determined optimism, his complicated relationships with each of his family members. I thought maybe I wasn’t a Rainbow Rowell fan, (possibly the only one?) but then I read the first page of Eleanor & Park. I’d started reading Fangirl over the summer last summer, and just didn’t really get into it. I didn’t expect to fall in love with this book. At sixteen, they both know love doesn’t always last, but sometimes you can’t help hoping it will.

When he lets her share his seat on the bus so she doesn’t fall victim to bullies behind him, he doesn’t realize he’s opened his life to a girl who will wake him up in a way he’s never been awake before. To Park, she’s the girl with the crazy hair and the weird clothes. To preserve the tiny space in her tiny house that contains the only things that belong to her. Martin’s Press Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsĮleanor just wants to keep her head down and survive.

Rainbow rowell she never looked nice