Eleanor&Park

The book Eleanor and Park is a great read for young adults. The text is filled with multiple, teachable themes: family, isolation, love, suffering, courage, appearances, abandonment, gender, race, home, etc. The most important aspect of this particular text is the point of view its written from. The author does a great job of switching points of view when Eleanor is being talked about, then when Park is being talked about. This switch in point of view allows the characters to be looked deeper into, without having a central, main character that most books have. In other words, it would be hard to get a deeper insight into Park's life if the book were written in all first-person view from Eleanor or vise-versa. The switching of views also aids to the love story that is going on, because it makes it feel like more of a back and forth love affair to the reader.

The characters in Eleanor and Park develop tremendously throughout the book, particularly in the first 100 pages. The two characters go from not knowing each other at all and sitting silently on the bus next to each other, to sneaking out at night to see each other for just a little bit because they crave each other's presence. It could be said that the teenagers are being portrayed as love sick and immature-minded, but in a way, this book shows the reality of many middle school/early high school relationships: teenagers are in fact love crazy! Different from the traditional Romeo & Juliet story, Eleanor and Park go through real-life problems (bullying from kids on the bus, Eleanor's home situation, Park's mother's dissaproval at first), which make these characters relatable, although maybe seemingly immature.

The author, Rainbow Rowell, does a good job of showing a typical middle school relationship; I believe what is being done is a generalization of what middle school relationships are like. Generalizing all middle school relationships into one “normal” relationship can prove to be a problem because many relationships are not like this. Eleanor and Park are both shown to be in love, despite the pressure they have on them from their parents to give it up. This is typical of many YA lit novels, the parents being forceful and oppressing, and Rowell does a good job of allowing the characters to work through their problems on their own. I think the fact that although the characters of Eleanor and Park attend school and seem to be above average students since they are in honors classes, they fail to have other aspirations in life: a job, post high-school education, etc. The author sort of got lost in telling a love story and forgot to tell us where they are going or what they are trying to achieve (so far at least, I'm on page 200). Even in chapter 33, when Eleanor's mother explains that her cousin wants Eleanor to stay with her family this summer to take a course for honors students in high school, Eleanor turns it down in order to spend the summer with Park. This is the author, again, alluding to the fact that all these teenagers care about is love and being together.

So far, I would definitely give this book a high B. Ever since I picked it up, I have not been able to put it down, and I know that if I were in middle school, I would have loved it even more. That being said, the book does have its downfalls when it comes to characterization and themes. A few things that can be taught from the book are definitely the themes of family, isolation, suffering, and appearances, as well as certain literary elements, such as point of view because Rowell does a great job of that, but I think the main story of the book is a love story, and for that reason I would have to say I would keep this book more as a “fun-to-read” rather than a teachable book in middle school or high school classrooms.