The book I would like to talk about is ‘Eleanor and Park’ by Rainbow Rowell. This book is not just a story for me, but an emotional rollercoaster of feelings and actions.
The story is set in Omaha, Nebraska. Eleanor is a 16-year-old girl with curly red hair, and Park is a 16-year-old boy. They meet in the bus on their way to school. Eleanor and Park slowly bond over comics and mix tapes of the 1980s and become good friends.
Eleanor’s family isn’t perfect. She lives with her five siblings, mum and step dad Richie in a small two-bedroom apartment. Her step dad is mentally and physically abusive towards her mum and the children forever live in fear of him abusing them, too.
On the other hand, Park lives with his dad, his Korean mum and a younger brother. Park often believes he is a disappointment and isn’t interested in taekwondo. He gets along with the popular people in school but is very insecure about his size and Asian heritage.
The book also contains cliche high school fights, failed romantic moments between Eleanor and Park and a lot of family drama in both their houses. At the end, Park helps Eleanor escape to Minnesota to her uncle and aunt and never responds to Park’s letters or messages except one postcard with three words written on it.
I love the book. I love its warmth and its vibrancy, its heartache and its pain, its humour and it’s sarcasm, the ugliness and the beauty, the crying and the laughter. I love that there’s still a tiny chance for them to meet and fall in love all over again.
— The reader is a student based in Dubai.
