Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think I’m going to have to redefine how I approach a Rainbow Rowell book. There are some authors I come to when I’m in the need of something short, satisfying – brief, almost. When I know I need to fix something in my soul and I need that to last a certain period of time and then I’m good to go. There are others that I brush with again and again when I want to fall into their worlds and remind myself of how good story telling can be.

And then there’s Rainbow Rowell, who is, I think, one of the few authors that I will read and never let go.

I read Eleanor & Park last night. I want to reread it now, right now, and I’m going to. The moment I finish this review, I’m going to sink straight back into it. It’s something which happened with Landline, and with Fangirl, and it’s something that’s happened with Eleanor & Park. I don’t want to let this book go. I don’t, I won’t.

Eleanor & Park is the story of the relationship between Eleanor, the new girl in town with the red hair and the crazy clothes, and Park, the quiet boy on the bus. One thing to note is that this book does contain some dark themes and language so do have a read of it yourself beforehand if working with it in a formal context or wanting to check it for your kids.

Eleanor & Park is also a very wonderful, wonderful thing. This is a book of aching, soft, painful, vivid love. Rowell has this awfully wondrous gift of being able to let her characters breathe within her pages – it’s something that’s done by a very few select (intensely brilliant)

When you read, sometimes I think, you’re conscious very much ‘of’ the book. You’re conscious of the fact that these characters are within the confines of the book, that they are in the paper, and the text, and that they will end. That you’ll come to the end of the book and it’ll be done. It’ll be over, and you’ll move on.

I don’t think you move on from this book. I finished it and stared at the back cover, and I felt like Eleanor and Park were out there. No. It was more than that. They’re out there. They’re living their lives. And we just got to watch for a little bit of it.

But oh, but oh, it was good.

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