Eleanor & Park

“You think that holding someone hard will bring them closer. You think that you can hold them so hard that you'll still feel them, embossed on you, when you pull away.

Every time Eleanor pulled away from Park, she felt the gasping loss of him.”

4.5 STARS Well I had to wait to write this review because I was a blubbering mess at four in the morning after finishing this book. This is my first Rainbow Rowell and may I say, I needall of her books immediately? Because this was amazing. I am not a huge fan of contemporaries, often finding myself missing some action and just overall preferring to lose myself so completely in fantasy or historical fiction, but this book has been recommended to be for months and months and finally I picked it up and I've never found myself enjoying a realistic novel more. The characters of this book, not only Eleanor and Park but secondary ones as well, were just so tangible. I think that's one of the best part of this book: the connection I had with so many of these characters. I adored our two main characters, and I loved that their relationship was so natural. I find that often one of the reasons I turn from contemporaries is because I find the romances to be too cheap or rushed or cheesy, but this was just...pure. It was slow, it was beautiful, and it was worth every page and more. With the threat of the first chapter in present time looming over me as I read, I knew this book was going to be bittersweet, and believe me, it was, but in the best way. It was less bitter than sweet, and that postcard sent me into a little puddle of happy tears that had previously been sad sniffles. I also loved the writing style of this book, and it's one of the reasons that I'll be checking into Rainbow's other novels. It was written in the stream of consciousness process, but I loved that between the two different perspectives I could distinctly feel the shift in thoughts, something that is often lost or underdeveloped in dual perspective YA novels. If I stopped reading, came back to the book and opened to a random page, I would immediately know whose perspective I was in, and it was perfect. Eleanor and Park bounced perfectly off one another, he the stability to her wildness, she the creativity to his perfectly boxed-in world, and it was nothing less than beautiful to let their relationship, something that started in the slightest shift on the bus seat to the tenderest kisses behind the garden wall, bloom and grow. My only negative comment on this book is for the ending, not because it was bittersweet, but because I didn't like how everything wrapped up with the people beyond our lovebirds. I wish we had more information on Eleanor's mother and biological father and exactly what happened to cause them to devolve into such hopelessly lost people. But perhaps it's best left untold for the ready to construct their own perceptions around. This was truly a wonderful book, and now that my tears have dried I need to go get another one of Rainbow's books, right now. Share your thoughts!