Eleanor & Park

When I first wrote this review I was extremely uneducated and ignorant and failed to spot the multitude of problems in regards to racism throughout this narrative. I apologise deeply for this. I was wrong and I need to educate myself further on racism. I have chosen not to delete my original review as this would be an attempt to hide my ignorance and that would be wrong. I was ignorant, I still am in a lot of ways and I apologise.General statement for all my reviews on books by Rainbow Rowell: For reasons regarding what Rainbow Rowell has written in the past, and her continued defiance to listen to those hurt by this, I no longer read her books, or support and promote her in any way. I am sorry for supporting her, but I won't hide my mistakes as that would be wrong, instead please be aware my thoughts and feelings towards her have changed due to her behaviour and my opinions on her are now different* - July 2020

Listened to the audiobook

Rainbow gave us another cute couple, but unfortunately missed the mark was this book to make it good. Whilst I don't think it deserves the hype it had when it first came out it was still good to listen to (but that's more down to the narrators).

The story follows Park and Eleanor's romance from when they first met to the end of their relationship, but also focuses on Eleanor's not so great home life with her relationship with her stepfather being the main point in this.

Eleanor and Park were enjoyable characters, a bit one dimensional at times but they were also both 15/16, so maybe Rainbow just wrote them that way as they didn't know who they are yet. Whilst I didn't have any real issues with Eleanor I do think Rainbow could have expanded on Park's character more, in particular in terms of how he dealt with racism in the 80s in a small American town, ad unfortunately she just seems to gloss over this aspect of Park's life.

The relationship itself was cute, but at times a bit boring. It's not a romance I would say I ‘ship' as to be honest they don't have that much in common or seem to truly get along as friends, and therefore partners should. However, it's a very true portrayal of how a lot of relationship at 16/15 are - I know my first relationship at 16 was a lot like this (little in common but somehow still in ‘love')

I do think this book had some pacing problems sometimes as the plot wasn't very defined, and there wasn't a form of action in every chapter. But I did like the fact Rainbow didn't shy away from the abuse aspect of the plot, and didn't have to show outward violence to illustrate that Eleanor was in a abusive home. However, that doesn't make up for the fact that sometimes I felt like I was waiting for something to happen.

Overall this wasn't bad, it had a lot of good aspects but too many things missed the mark to mean I actually enjoyed it. It just felt very ‘meh' (2 stars)