Book Talks: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

I did cry during this book, but mainly because I was expecting to cry, so I just let it all loose.
I did a happier, half baked review here: http://bookahooligans.blogspot.com/2014/06/half-baked-reviews-eleanor-park-by.html

It's about these two characters; one is Eleanor. She's the new student. She's a little
overweight, has really really red curly hair, she's very quiet, and when she does speak, she's usually pretty funny or sarcastic.
The other character is Park. He's pretty normal. He's Asian, he wears band t shirts, he reads comics, and he leads a pretty normal life.
One day, Eleanor walks onto the bus, and immediately, Park thinks "She's asking for it." Eleanor is really quirky and she's an easy target for bullies. So, when we tries to find a seat on the bus, everyone says mean things to her, and tells her that she can't sit in a certain seat. Finally, Park just says "Sit down!" (plus some unkind words) and she sits next to him.
That is how this amazing story begins.

I am not prepared to review this book. If you're reading this, it's a miracle because I wasn't really sure if I would ever make a book talk for this book. It's practically perfection. What more needs to be said?

Without spoiling anything, I can say these things about the book:

• The characters are very realistic.
• The talking is very realistic. Reading the book made me feel like I was just eavesdropping on their conversation from the seat behind them on the bus.
• The characters definitely are different than most YA characters, and I really liked that. Think back to the last time you read a book with an overweight YA character . . . keep thinking . . . keep thinking . . . found anything yet? No? Didn't think so. I just appreciate that the author added that into the story because it gave the main character a flaw, a struggle, an insecurity, a message that looks will never interfere with true love.
• Every page was perfection.

Now, for spoiling. If you don't know how this whole thing below works, then I'm terribly sorry. You'll have to look through another one of my book talks to find out, or you can use your knowledge on how computers work to discover the truth.
<SPOILER> None of the book reviews that I have read have said exactly what Eleanor's stepdad is. The book doesn't say it directly either. It just says that Eleanor isn't allowed to have a shower door, her stepdad wrote nasty notes on her books, and he's not a nice person. So all we can do is speculate. I don't get the impression that Eleanor was raped or sexually assaulted by him, just because I think she would have been less trusting with Park and that her situation would be entirely different. But I get the impression that Richie might have been verbally abusive, at least. But I was not expecting that ending. When Eleanor first saw the makeup and messed up comic books, I was thinking "Those stupid, irresponsible kids . . ." but then, once everything came together, I was just like . . . OH MY GOSH ELEANOR! I somehow let the whole Eleanor having to use the bathroom without a door thing just completely slip under my radar. And the ending . . . I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. It was like, NO! LOVE EACH OTHER AND HOLD EACH OTHER AGAIN! But it was also like, that was the cutest thing I have ever read. What do you guys think Eleanor's letter said? It seems like most of us can agree that she said something along the lines of "I love you" because that would have been a perfect ending, but we can never be entirely sure. <SPOILER>

Anyway, loved this book. Fantastic. I'm gonna go die in a corner.

Half Baked Reviews: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Currently, I am on chapter 37 of Eleanor & Park, and oh my gosh. It's so friggin' adorable.
It's about these two characters; one is Eleanor. She's the new student. She's a little overweight, has really really red curly hair, she's very quiet, and when she does speak, she's usually pretty funny or sarcastic.
The other character is Park. He's pretty normal. He's Asian, he wears band t shirts, he reads comics, and he leads a pretty normal life.
One day, Eleanor walks onto the bus, and immediately, Park thinks "She's asking for it." Eleanor is really quirky and she's an easy target for bullies. So, when we tries to find a seat on the bus, everyone says mean things to her, and tells her that she can't sit in a certain seat. Finally, Park just says "Sit down!" (plus some unkind words) and she sits next to him.
That is how this amazing story begins.

There are some things I really like about this book so far.

• The main characters sound like teenagers. Unlike in TFiOS, the main characters didn't read genius scripts. They just said what came to mind. They say "like" and "um" but they don't sound completely stupid. They both seem to have decent vocabularies, but they sound like teenagers. Because teenagers throw words like "frazzled" and "gruesome" into sentences, but they also take time to develop their thoughts and fill that time with "ummm . . ." Basically, they sound like they're actually talking to each other, not like the author is just sitting behind her computer, searching for clever comments and synonyms on the internet.
• It is not instaluv. At first, they pretty much hated each other. Slowly, they got used to each other. However, once their relationship picked up steam, it picked up pretty quickly. I almost feel like they found out that they liked each other too quickly, but it wasn't love at first sight, and I really appreciate that in a book.
• The book pretty much captures teenage life. It shows that teenagers do have actual problems to deal with. Eleanor has to deal with a drunken stepdad, and Park has less problems. He just had to pass his classes and stay out of trouble. But the book shows you that they are dealing with bad things.
• There are parental figures. In most books, the parents are usually dead or disappear somewhere along the way as the main characters deal with other things. This book, however, really shows you the negative and positive effects of a certain style of parenting. In Eleanor's case, her parents divorced and she remarried someone who just wasn't right for the family, and I think that has contributed a lot to her shyness and her inability to feel like she belongs and to trust people. In Park's case, his parents really cared a lot about the things he did, and I think that the eyeliner is Park's way of rebelling against that somewhat strict parenting.
• I really like how the author kind of justified their love. This might not make sense with what I'm about to say, but hear me out. Park said that in the ninth (?) grade he kissed a girl and thought he was gay. But he said that when he was around Eleanor, he just felt a really strong connection to her that he didn't feel with anyone else, and I think that just kind of proved to me, the reader, that he actually really cared about Eleanor.
• So, I think about people a lot. One day during lunch, one of my acquaintances (I currently don't have friends) left a Tupperware container on the lunch table. I didn't have a lunch bag, so I asked my other acquaintance if she could put the Tupperware in her lunch bag. She did, and I was just thinking all day if she would bring the Tupperware container back to school the next day, and if it would be awkward, and mehjkhgh. This book just showed me that thinking about stupid things like that is perfectly normal.

Other than that, this book is ruining my life because I was busy reading it yesterday instead of like, posting on this blog. I would recommend this book, but I first have to make sure that the ending's not crap, so we'll see at a later date.
Until then . . .