An update and a Book Review // Eleanor & Park

Things have never been busy like this before.Between moving houses, relocating to a new office (temporarily), traveling for work and the amount of reports and essays I have been shoving up my face at work is completely draining me out. Literally.

That’s why I have been MIA and this little blog has been ignored for some time now. Man, blogging is tedious sometimes! Huge commitment is required which I’m miserable at. Kudos to all blog buddies who never is on writer’s block. 

Well well,what made me come back to do a little update? My love for books. 

I just finished reading Eleanor & Park. I had to share it with you here because if I don’t, uh…nothing will happen. 

Duh. 

On a recent travel overseas I quickly picked this book on an impulsive shopping spree. Well, I’ve heard of Rainbow Rowell’s books before and had wanted to read Fangirl but this book’s cover caught my attention. I know I’m not supposed to judge a book by its cover. That’s cliché, I tell you. Because I picked this book by its cover, I mean look at the cover, isn’t it CUTE? A red head girl and a boy, sharing a headpiece. So simple yet beautiful. 

I finished the book in two days straight. Why? Because it kept me hooked. I couldn’t go to bed without telling myself ‘Just one more chapter’ and run late for work with large prominent eye bags. I had to shut myself in the room and cut off human contact because I couldn’t put down the book. It has been long since I read a good book. Eleanor & Park, a 2013 young adult novel tells a beautiful, haunting love story of two sixteen year olds in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1986. 

Eleanor is the new girl, the girl with the crazy red hair and strange clothes. She comes from a very dysfunctional family. Every moment at home for her is terrifying as she lives in constant fear of offending her abusive alcoholic stepfather. She shares a cramped room with her four siblings where toothbrush is a luxury and she has to go to school in wet crumpled clothes. 

Park is a half-Korean kid who has a more stable family life but constantly has a conflict with his father. 

Eleanor and Park bond over comic books and music and falls in love on their school bus but deals with domestic abuse, child abuse, racism, bullying and body image. Then the kick-ass plot reveals and immediately I fell in love with the characters. It just blew me away. 

The writing is as soft and silky as creamy butter that melts right away as you put it in your mouth. Like this quote: 

"Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something." 

The fact that the story is told from both Eleanor and Park’s perspectives makes the character overwhelming. The way they speak to each other, about everything makes me renew my faith in love. It reminds you of your high school teenage love, that’s if you had one. 

Throughout the book, one word that constantly came out of me after each chapter was “CUTE.” Frankly, I giggled all the way towards the end of the book and craved for more. It’s a light read with just 325 pages. Rowell definitely left me craving for more. I wouldn’t be able to pick up another book for a while now.