Eleanor & Park

by Rainbow Rowell

This book was adorable. I had heard of it but didn't have any solid plans to read it until I got it as a birthday gift (just another reason why birthdays are awesome). I'm so glad I got to read this. It's about two teenagers falling in love in the late 1980s in the middle of Nowheresville, America. It's actually really hard for them to just be together due to her family life being less than ideal and the nuances of the high school social hierarchy (hint: neither of them are anywhere near the top of that hierarchy). I appreciated that it was a very difficult romance which, if you think about it, seems to be what every teenager wants for some reason. A relationship isn't a real relationship unless it is reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. As if they need something to prove to everyone else just how in love they really are.

These two don't do that and I am intensely grateful for that. I would have liked them much less if they had. They just want to be together, and when they succeed, they simply enjoy it. At the same time, not all of their problems are external. As humans do, they make mistakes and bicker and fight but it never changes the fact that they love each other.

I'm not normally a fan of the first person POV and I've heard third person limited can be tricky. My favorite thing about this book was the way it seamlessly switched between two points of third person POV. It was done so that Rowell never had to repeat anything (a common problem with multiple first person POVs) and it gave us a look at both characters' thoughts and reactions to situations and conversations. It worked very well and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I will say that the one thing about this book that really impressed me was the fact that it never made me roll my eyes at these two. Come on, you've all done it. You know those teenagers who bitch and moan and cry if they have to be separated for *gasp* a whole day! Yeah, these kids definitely fit into that category, but I didn't care. I was so sucked up in their lives and their relationship that I actually forgot to be the bitter spinster that I am. Darn it all!