Short Summary:

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell is a novel about teenage lovers Eleanor and Park. The novel records their experience in 1987 America. Both the characters are non-whites in the land of whites. The two fall in love which is pure, innocent, and exquisite.

Eleanor is a red-haired girl who lives with her four brothers and sisters in a poorly furnished home. Her father has left her mother and now they all live with their short-tempered step-dad, Richie.

Park is half-Korean and lives happily with his small family. Rowell draws a contrast between their family life, Eleanor lives in an abusive environment while Park lives in a comfy environment. Their attraction for each other is much like the attraction of two opposites. However, there are many things they have in common, for example, their love for comic books and music. The development of their love relationship is much like the very first love we all have felt.

Plot Analysis of Eleanor and Park:

The novel has small chapters. The perspective is shifted from Eleanor to Park in the novel. It starts when Eleanor takes admission to the school where Park studies. They meet on the school bus for the first time. Eleanor is bullied for her weird and funky looks and Park feels sorry for her. Even though he does not like her much but eventually he falls for her idiosyncrasies.

As the relationship between Eleanor and Park grows, the personal life of Eleanor gets tenser and tenser. She keeps receiving weird notes on her book which infuriates not only her but Park as well.

The author reveals the reason behind these notes by the end. However, this reason does not make much sense as it does not explain all the bullying she receives from her schoolmates anyway. The plot is therefore not a strong aspect of this book.

Characters in Eleanor and Park:

The major characters are Eleanor and Park.

Eleanor is a submissive, shy, and afraid girl. She seems to come from an entirely different planet. It is very hard for her to connect with people around her. But she has a beauty of character which most girls of this age lack. She is purely innocent and has a unique natural beauty.

Park is shy but more confident than Eleanor. However, he has a reserved nature and does not have many friends. But he is stronger than Eleanor. It is he who keeps on protecting her on different occasions. He is very understanding and has a really nice persona.

The minor characters include their family members who surely support the plot. Eleanor’s stepdad Richie is the antagonist of the story.

Major Themes in Eleanor and Park:

Love:

Love is the major theme of the novel. It shows the very cliché form of love. The love we all experience as teenagers. The best thing about the novel is that it does not color this emotion with any philosophical strokes. It is as pure as snow. It has the warmth of the first love.

Bullying/Abuse:

Marital abuse and bullying are the common themes of the novel. Eleanor’s mother has to endure marital abuse in her second marriage. Eleanor deals with bullying in her school. The author neither challenges nor celebrates the idea. It is just presented in the background of Eleanor and Park’s story. However, this abuse leads Eleanor to make a very unusual decision by the end.

Minor Themes:

The novel deals with the theme of social differences, friendship, and teenage drama. It explores the growth of characters using these themes.

The novel appears racist at some points as well. When Eleanor goes to her father’s house, the author comments that there is, “an ashtray shaped like a naked African woman”. There is surely no need to tell that it has the shape of a naked African woman. An ashtray is quite small and often goes unnoticed, but the fact that it is shaped like a naked woman who must have the features of an African woman can be quite disturbing for some readers. There are few other minor hints as well which color the book as racist for an Asian reader.

Language:

Language is the strongest aspect of this novel. The book is full of beautiful details about Eleanor and Park. Rowell explains their feelings for each other in a very beautiful way. The language is highly refreshing and very comfy.

Park recalls the feeling of holding Eleanor’s hand in words which makes all of us think about our first-ever connection with the first love.

“Holding Eleanor’s hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.”

She recalls his face saying,

“Park’s face was like art. And not weird, ugly art either. Park had the sort of face you painted because you didn’t want history to forget it.”

And when she tells him,

“I think you’re…Beautiful. Breathtaking. Like the person in a Greek myth who makes one of the gods stop caring about being a god.”

Park recalls her as,

“She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

And the author’s comment,

“Ever since the first day they’d met, Eleanor was always seeing him in unexpected places. It was like their lives were overlapping lines, like they had their own gravity. Usually, that serendipity felt like the nicest thing the universe had ever done for her.”

And the heartbreaking lines,

“He’d stopped trying to bring her back. She only came back when she felt like it anyway, in dreams and lies and broken-down déjà vu…Sometimes he couldn’t even remember what she looked like, even when he was looking at her picture. (Maybe he’d looked at it too much)

Concluding Remarks:

The book is a perfect read if you are looking for an experience long lost – the experience of first love. Even though it is slightly racist but it is surely a pretty read.

Read More: Eleanor and Park

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If you are interested in the thriller genre, check out my recent review of One of Us is Lying.