Review: Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Eleanor and Park
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Pub. Date: February 26, 2013
Genre: YA Romance, Contemporary

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. -Goodreads

5 Stars

There are certain books out there that you just put your entire life on hold to finish; you don't socialise, you get very little sleep and any other work you were supposed to do is left undone. If you suffer from these symptoms then you are most likely reading a very good book and I can assure you all that Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell is most definitely a good book!

If you are active in the book blogging world then you should have either read or at least heard about Eleanor and Park, but for those of you who haven't read it then please just exit this post and run to the nearest library or book store so that you too can experience this book! (and then when you are done reading it come back and read the rest of this review)

Eleanor and Park was a book that made me feel so many different emotions in a very short space of time. It had some serious themes going on yet at the same time it was a fun read about the friendship that developed between the two main characters. There was no insta-love going on in this novel which I really appreciated after reading a few books that all featured unrealistic relationships so it was a pleasant change to read something real. I cannot think of even one little thing that I disliked about this book and there are very few books that I can actually say that about.

Rainbow Rowell's writing style reminds me a lot of John Green's and I've also heard it being compared to Stephanie Perkins'. All three are amazing authors and if you like one then I'm about 99% sure that you will like the others! Looking for Alaska especially reminded me of Eleanor and Park because of the ending which I will go into more detail about below.

Let's just say that I went from this....

To this...

- ALERT! Spoiler Ahead! - ALERT! Spoiler Ahead! -

I feel like I can't fully express my opinions of this book without spoiling everything and by everything I mean especially the ending so if you haven't read Eleanor and Park then pleeeaaassseee don't read this! I don't want to be responsible for ruining this book for anyone.

The ending. Let's just get this part out of the way because let's be honest that's what gave me the most feels and that's what everyone's making assumptions about and of course I have my own theories. I think that those three words were "I Love You", at least that's what I hope it was. I found an interview on Goodreads with Rainbow Rowell which you can find here, but this is what she said about those last three words.

"I won't tell you what the three words are, because I'm not quite done with these characters; there's still a chance that I'll write about them again someday. I will say that the three words are happy and hopeful words.
People have guessed 'Park just stop' or 'Leave me alone'—but if you look at Park's reaction, you know that he's happy. 
'He sat up. He smiled. Something heavy and winged took off from his chest.'
That's hopeful!" 

- Spoiler Finished - Spoiler Finished -

I'm extremely hopeful that Rowell will take the time to write a sequel for Eleanor and Park, but in the mean time I think I had better read Fangirl as it seems to be all that I hear about on Twitter.

Who here also loved Eleanor and Park or if you didn't then why not?