Books I've Loved: Eleanor and Park

I loved this book.  It was so sweet and so honest and so very, very real.  Both the main characters are so beautifully drawn and feel so much like people you might know.  Or be.  It's a romance, but it's not like any other romance I've ever read.  It's awkward and uncomfortable even while it's satisfying and sweet.

Park is Korean and Eleanor is lower class.  Their two worlds could not be further apart even if physically their houses aren't that distant from each other.  Yet the simple act of sharing a pair of headphones to listen to a song is big enough to breach the yawning chasm between their two worlds.

I loved this book.  I actually looked forward to my commute because I couldn't wait to start reading it again.  And when I was finished, I was disappointed because I knew I'd never have the chance to read Eleanor and Park for the first time again.

If you don't believe me, here's the blurb…

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.