A Review of Rainbow Rowe’s Eleanor and Park

Summary

The story is about two young teenagers, Eleanor & Park. They meet each other in the school bus. Park has a seat on which he always sits alone it is in the back of the bus, Eleanor is new at this school when she couldn’t find a place to sit she sat next to Park. Park hated her at first because he thought she looked very weird because of her red curly hair, freckles, and in his eyes her weird clothing style. At home Eleanor lives with her mom, step dad, and her four siblings: Ben, Maisie, Mouse, and Richie Jr. Eleanor hates her step dad because he beats up her mom and he threw her out house some months earlier. Park’s home situation is the opposite of Eleanor’s, he has 2 loving parents. Eleanor and Park their friendship arises when they sit next to each other in the bus everyday. Park reads comic books and Eleanor reads with him without really showing it because she doesn’t want Park to think weird about it, but Park does the opposite because he knows he reads with him so he puts the comic book on a good place for Eleanor to read with him. They start talking to each other and become very close friends. Eleanor gets bullied at school out of anger Park beats up the bully. Eleanor and Park also kiss and hold hands but Eleanor is scared to get into a relationship with Park because she is scared of Richie. The story ends with Eleanor going to live with her uncle and aunt and breaking up with Park.

Characters analysis

Eleanor Douglas, she is the protagonist she is one of the two main characters of the book. She is a very shy girl who doesn’t like to have all the attention on her. Eleanor is also scared to stand up for herself because she lacks confidence, that is why she gets bullied at school. She is a really caring person and cares over the ones she loves, for her siblings for example.

Park Sheridan, Park is also the protagonist of the story, he together with Eleanor are the main characters. He is a pretty indistinct person, he doesn’t have lots of friends and prefers to be on his own. That is why he always sat alone in the bus, until he met Eleanor. He really likes making mix tapes and reading comic books. He makes mixtapes for Eleanor as a way to express his love for her. Park lives together with his parents Mindy and Jamie.

Richie, Richie is Eleanor’s step dad, he sent Eleanor away for nearly a year because he couldn’t handle her. He is really abusive and controlling. He abuses Eleanor’s mom when she disobeys him. He is gets mad easily because of that Eleanor keeps a lot of secrets from him because she is scared for her reaction if he finds out.

TIna, Tina is one of Eleanor’s bullies, she is that one popular girl at school who thinks that she is better than anyone else. She usually makes fun of Eleanor’s weight or clothing. Even though she might seem like a bad person she did help Eleanor at the end of the book.

My opinion

I really liked this book because it is about love and I really like books about love or romantic books. I really liked that it was from two different perspectives Park’s perspective and Eleanor’s perspective. Sometimes it helped to get a better insight about the story because you got to read what both characters felt like or thought at the same moment. I only didn’t like the ending I think they could have written a better end, I hope that this book will get a sequel so that some questions that are still in the reader's’ mind will be answered. I think my friends will like it too because they like the same kinds of topics like I do, I only don’t think my boy friends will like this book because I don’t think this topic attracts boys as much as it attracts girls. I also liked the message of this book the message was that not everything is about appearance or about how popular someone is but that it’s also about personality. I think that is a very beautiful message because nowadays people only look at appearance or how popular someone is and only few people look at the personality of someone.