Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

They’re probably listening to The Smiths or Modest Mouse or something equally hip that I’ve never heard of.

To conclude my journey through Rainbow Rowell’s existing oeuvre, I cracked open Eleanor & Park, which had the most hype around it. Which was partially why I decided to hold out on the most “popular” book—major bestsellers almost never live up to the hype, or are famous for the wrong reasons.

Eleanor & Park, however, surprised me by how it would be equal parts lovely and soul-crushingly, devastatingly, tear-your-heart-out-and-stomp-it-on-the-floor  heartbreaking.

The story follows Eleanor, who comes from a home of poverty and abuse, and Park, a boy coming of age amidst his family’s expectations. Set in the 80s, the reader flips between the two characters’ points of view as they discover, fall in love, and mature together via comic books, mix cassette tapes, and  teenage drama.

The best part of this book was that teenage drama was far from the main conflict of the story. When I mentioned earlier that this novel was heartbreaking, it had little to do with Eleanor and Park’s relationship—rather, it was the portrait of her home life that often had me on the verge of tears. Much of the time Eleanor felt trapped, unable to escape her abusive stepfather to the point that she even fears her life, as well as unable to tell anyone about her situation.

The main thrust of the novel was, of course, Eleanor and Park’s relationship, which I honestly found a bit odd and unsettling at times. During the early stages of their relationship, the pair did not even speak much to each other, saying all of two words to each other throughout the day, speaking instead through music or a glance. Eleanor would often act meanly towards Park; in fact, little of their time together felt like they were getting along. Maybe it was my failure to see through the lens of a 15/16 year-old, but there were times I would put the book down and say to myself, “This seems like an unhealthy relationship.”

However, the final act of the novel is what makes the clunky beginning worthwhile, as we see Eleanor and Park begin to settle into the semblance of a healthy relationship…only to see it taken away. Cue the heartbreak. By the final pages, I was beginning to give up hope for our young misfit lovers, but was given the smallest glimmer of hope on the final page. Leave it to Rainbow Rowell to keep me hooked to a romance novel until the very end.

Now that I’ve finished Rainbow’s current works (her next book, Landline, comes out July 2014, and I very much look forward to it!), it appears I have to move on to other things. And it appears the next book on my reading list is…George R.R. Martin’s A Feast For Crows.

Ooooooooh boy. This is gonna take awhile.