Do you remember your first love? That bundle of nervousness, awkward conversation starters, endless amount of daydreaming and that FIRST kiss.
Let me tell you this, when you are going to start reading Eleanor and park, you are going to experience hell lot of flashback about your first love, mixed tapes, comic books and bus journey to school. It’s like riding a roller coaster of emotions, it doesn’t stop once you finish the book either, you end up going on and on about the moments for a while. I have to admit that this book brought back to me is a tiny speck of hope that true love exist and sometimes you just have to take a leap.
Apart from being a page-turner with steady flow of cappuccino and making you scream internally from time to time. The book is easy to read, the chapters are inner monologues of the characters with well-paced and extremely accurate depiction of emotions many of us have gone through at that stage in our lives. What sets this book apart is that the maturity level of these characters showcased in the book, their outlook towards a problem to inhibitions is something that our current generation of adolescents is experiencing. The book address issues ranging from bullying, child abuse, racism, alcoholism, body image, cultural heritage and domestic abuse. The book makes you ponder on thoughts about how quick kids are growing up so fast and how their lives are shaping up with deceit, abuse and hatred at such a young age.
Eleanor is a big girl with very curly red-hair, she had to move back to Omaha, Nebraska, made to share her bedroom with her other siblings who are messy and with no sense of privacy. She hails from a poor family who can’t even afford to buy toothbrush and is in constant fear of her alcoholic and abusive stepfather. She starts to fall in love with Park over comic books and mixed tapes, which they share during their bus journey to school.
Park is the Asian kid (half South Korean and half white) who has learned Taekwondo since kindergarten with his younger brother. He is the kid who likes to keep a low profile at the school, is into comic books, video games and music. At first he hate how Eleanor attracts all the unwanted attention during her first bus journey to the school, he even tries to ignore her but slowly falls for charms.
This love story is of two misfit teenagers living in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1986. As all love stories, complications are always present just around the corner but in this case he is sitting on the couch in the living room watching television with beer in his hand.
I would highly recommend you to read the book and do let me know what were your thoughts.
My rating for this book is: 5/5
Aanchal 