***Spoilers ahead!!***

Eleanor and Park is an appealing love story based on two teenagers falling in love, most unexpectedly, and with the most unexpected person possible. Cliche? My fellow book readers will understand. 

The book starts with a new girl, Eleanor, who is not confident in her plus-sized and red-headed frame, but is fiercely herself and only herself. The book is set in the year 1986. Eleanor has recently moved schools, which has never been easy on anyone. On the first day of school, she gets on the bus. There, she is ridiculed by a bunch of kids from her school who don’t let her sit down, and that’s how she meets Park. 

Park is an Asian sixteen-year-old who wants to express himself in a way that is not the norm in the 80s but is afraid to. Park instantly judges Eleanor for being too comfortable in her skin, wondering how easily she can be herself…which is not the case at all. These two do not start as friends – they are seatmates and only sit together on the bus without ever muttering a word to each other. That is until Park notices Eleanor sneak reading his comics on the bus. They finally talk, excited to talk about comics every day. They go from seatmates to friends, friends who spend every second talking about everything, wondering how they’d gone so long without doing so. This leads them to start dating, and it’s like they only need each other. Park learns to be himself around Eleanor and Eleanor can be vulnerable with Park, knowing he’ll be there for her. They have their ups and downs like with any relationship, with Eleanor coming from a disrupted household and Park’s mom not being able to accept Eleanor. But they make it work. That is, until Eleanor gets into big trouble with her stepdad, causing her to want to run away somewhere where she’ll be safe. Park helps her get away knowing it might be the last time he’ll ever see her.

This book describes the result of a first love, the desperation of two young lovers willing to go to any measure if it means staying together. Eleanor and Park both know that a first love never lasts yet are daring enough to try. This tragic masterpiece by Rainbow Rowell deserves applause for making you feel so many feelings at the same time!