[review] ELEANOR & PARK BY RAINBOW ROWELL

Book: Eleanor & Park
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Rating:

TWO MISFITS. ONE EXTRAORDINARY LOVE.
It's 1986 and two star-crossed teens
are smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave
and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you'll remember your own first love--and just how hard it pulled you under. A cross between the iconic '80s movie Sixteen Candles and the classic coming-of-age novel Looking for Alaska, Eleanor & Park is a brilliantly written young adult novel.

THIS BOOK! Those were the two words I kept repeating after I finished Eleanor & Park. Once in a while, there is a book that hits the market and blows the readers away. I was kinda at a loss for words. If I start praising the book, my words stock wouldn't be sufficient enough to describe my inner feelings. I've been reading raving reviews for this book a while now, and even though I was the last to arrive at the party, I finally gave it a go. And, man, I'm so glad I did ! Brace yourself for a lot of quotes. . . Just a warning. I cannot do these characters justice, so I'm letting Rainbow Rowell words speak for themselves.

Eleanor

“All I do when we’re apart is think about you, and all I do when we’re together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I’m so out of control, I can’t help myself. I’m not even mine anymore, I’m yours, and what if you decide that you don’t want me? How could you want me like I want you?”

Park touched her hands like they were something rare and precious, like her fingers were intimately connected to the rest of her body. Which, of course, they were. It was hard to explain. He made her feel like more than the sum of her parts.

“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.”

“But the explanations fell apart in her hands. Everything true was too hard to write--he was too much to lose. Everything she felt for him was too hot to touch.”

Park

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

"All her bones seemed more purposeful than other people's.  Like they weren't just there to hold her up; they were there to make a point."

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

“I miss you, Eleanor. I want to be with you all the time. You’re the smartest girl I've ever met, and the funniest, and everything you do surprises me. And I wish I could say that those are the reasons I like you, because that would make me sound like a really evolved human being …‘But I think it’s got as much to do with your hair being red and your hands being soft … and the fact that you smell like homemade birthday cake”

Rowell loves to leave us with an open ending. She likes for the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks about the characters and their future. . .  I LOVED IT! I’m currently suffering a huge book hangover :) If you don't read THIS wonderful book, you're flat out crazy.