Book Review: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

I read a lot of positive reviews for this book. And getting a 4.22 out of 5 rating on GoodReads got me more curious. Just like in 2012 when I put The Fault in Our Stars on my Christmas wish list, I placed Eleanor & Park on top of my list for 2013. Surprisingly, my boss got me as her “baby” and made one spoiled bookworm very happy!

I started reading Eleanor & Park on December 27 and flipped the last page of the book three days after. Considering my very hectic schedule the past holiday break, I could not believe how fast I finished reading this book. I did the most unimaginable things (I read inside a moving vehicle which I never did before!!!) just because it was so difficult to put this book down. So saying that this book is good would be the biggest understatement of the year.

I am not sure how old the author is, but she definitely knows how teenage love works. She surely knows how to tickle the minds and hearts of her readers. She made both Eleanor and Park so adorable in different ways. There were moments when I felt like I am reading The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns both by John Green, but Eleanor & Park stood out in its own right. It didn't make me cry just like what TFiOS did to me. But I remember smiling and rolling on our bed non-stop just because I could not contain my emotions. That made my husband really worried but amused at the same time.

Being an 80s baby, I loved the fact that the novel was set in 1986 when there was still no mobile phones and social media, those days when Walkman and comic books rule the teenage world! It’s also amazing how a first kiss and even holding each other hands can make a reader feel so great. Eleanor and Park’s “holding hands” moments are the best I have ever read. Halata bang kinikilig pa rin ako?!

But I have to warn you. This is not your typical love story. There is a degree of darkness that is not present in a usual love story. It talks about abuse and poverty. And both left an extent of terror inside me. Rainbow Rowell did a great job in making me feel like a sixteen-year old once again. And she did one helluva job playing with my emotions. I remember not being able to sleep as I kept on thinking how Eleanor & Park ended. If you search "Eleanor & Park ending" on Google, you’ll read how a lot of people became restless after reading the last sentence of this novel. You have to read the book to understand what I am talking about.

Once in a while, you stumble upon a book so good that you need to have a few minutes of solitude just so you can digest everything you have read after flipping the last page of the book. That’s what Eleanor & Park did to me!!!