Elenor and Park Review

   

 I think it’s about time I read a book this year that I actually liked. However, Eleanor and Park is not one of my new favorites. Little things irritated me were scattered throughout the book. That said, more was done right than wrong and Eleanor and Park is one of the better high-school romance novels out there. 

      The first and probably biggest gripe I had with this book was the formatting. Eleanor and Park is written in third-person limited switching between Eleanor’s and Park’s perspective. I didn’t have a problem with the split perspective. The book is title Eleanor and Park it the story of the two of them not just one. What I didn’t poetically like was the way in which the split perspective was handled. Every time the narration would switch between Eleanor and Park the page would be title with the current narrator. However, I feel this is very unnecessary as the book it third-person. If the narrator switches it’s very obvious. Personally, I felt slightly insulted as if whoever made this formatting decision thought the readers were too dumb to figure out who was narrating by the text alone that they had to outright be told.  I shall note this is very much a personal preference of mine and that several of my friends were not bothered by this one bit. 

      As to the actually story, I don’t think I have ever before read such a realistic representation of a high school relationship. Park and Eleanor are teens. Although they very much care about one another, they aren’t ready to get married and start their lives together. 

      The way the relationship came slowly, but organically. It wasn’t that Park saw Eleanor get on the bus and instantly fell in love or vice-versa. Eleanor starts reading Park’s comics with him and they slowly become friends. 

     Eleanor’s dysfunctional family contrast nicely with Park’s functional one. Park has a set of parents who love each other very much while Eleanor’s father doesn’t appear to care much for her, but her step-father is even worse. 

     I’ve notice the ending is a bit of a touchy subject so I have decided to discuss it here. I am not going to say exactly what happens just what I felt about it. However, I feel the following paragraph could be considered a spoiler. Read at your own risk. 

    Opened endings are lacking in YA books especially romances. I like the possibility of wondering what happened to Eleanor and Park’s relationship. I don’t have to know exactly where it went because whether the pair is together or not, I feel both Eleanor and Park win in the end. My biggest problem, which was not enough to ruin the book for me, was I felt not enough justice was given to Eleanor’s step-father.