Edit 09/13: I said a while ago when I read this book that it wasn't exactly my thing. But I really need to say something about the pathetic and narrow-minded people who caused so much trouble for the author (and others) and completely misrepresented this book. And I also want to say that I love everything Ms Rowell says in response to what has happened (that you can read in the link above). I suddenly want to tell everyone I know to read Eleanor & Park. And I fucking hate censorship. ............................................................................................
Three stars is not a wholly negative rating but I have to admit that I'm rather disappointed in this one. I'm not sure why, but I felt this would be the rule-breaker for my "no contemporary young adult romance" stance. Apparently not. This has enjoyable parts but the only real difference I can see between this and [b:Pushing the Limits|10194514|Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)|Katie McGarry|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1322770025s/10194514.jpg|15093690] is that the characters in the latter are meant to be hot. Which could have been interesting because I've always preferred reading about the so-called freaks and losers - the outsiders, in other words - than I have the hot people, but these two books follow the same generic pattern of teen love stories with a whole ton of behind-the-scenes angsty issues. Though this one was, in my opinion, less entertaining.
It's 1986. Eleanor is the new girl and she is not only genetically made to look like a victim but she does herself no favours by pairing her looks with a bizarre fashion sense. Having nowhere to sit on the school bus, she takes a seat next to the clearly reluctant Park. Park is half-Korean in an extremely white school, but he is given enough respect by the popular kids to help him get by. His home life, unlike Eleanor's, is pretty much perfect apart from a bit of badgering by his dad. Slowly over time, these two individuals develop a relationship that is formed around stuff like reading comics together and exchanging mix tapes. And other totally cool nerd things like Star Wars and Shakespeare - which I could easily relate to. I think one of the major problems I had with this book is that I failed to get a sense of the attraction between them, their relationship to me seemed more suited to friendship than love. The progression from reluctant bus partners to friendship was natural in the story, but I then felt that the jump from that to boyfriend/girlfriend feelings was too immediate and unbelievable.
Not only that, but where I felt the start of their relationship avoided the usual cliches and did something a bit different (like the way their relationship begins without them speaking to one another), I felt that once they were "together" or whatever you want to call it, it quickly dissolved into the usual sweet nothings and thoughts like "I'll die if I never see him again" after knowing each other for a few weeks. This isn't insta-love, but it's silliness. Or perhaps I really am just a cold-hearted, unromantic person?
I did like the well-rounded feel of both characters, though. The author gave them many different levels, making them experience a range of emotions in a realistic way. I also thought the darker element of this novel was mostly handled well, Eleanor's home life is told gradually in a frightening way that is suitable for such situations. But it does just heighten my ability to make comparisons between this and [b:Pushing the Limits|10194514|Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)|Katie McGarry|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1322770025s/10194514.jpg|15093690], and I don't like serious issues such as domestic violence being used to fuel the love angst and create a Romeo and Juliet kind of forbidden love scenario. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
This book will be great (hopefully) for fans of quirky, nerdy romance stories with an underlying dark angsty side, and for those who love typical nerdy references. If you don't usually like young adult romance and were eying this up as possibly being the book to change all that... you'll probably be disappointed. It has good parts, but it's not that different from anything else out there.
