Eleanor and Park

     I finished the book Eleanor & Park last night. Which I found to be quite intriguing. I will start this off with an analysis of this book. I thought that the two main themes to be noticed were love and family. Love was very apparent in the relationship that developed between Eleanor and Park. Many times throughout the book Park would confess his love towards Eleanor and she seemed almost afraid to admit that she had such deep and unstoppable feeling for him. Though in the end when she writes a post card to him it says, “Just three words long” (Rowell 325). We can all assume that those three words were her finally confessing her love to Park. Family is seen with both Eleanor and Park, though they both had very different family lives. Eleanor had an abusive and controlling stepfather that no one was brave enough to stand up to because of this she never wanted to leave her bedroom and face him. Her stepfather in a way pushed her from having a relationship with her mother. On the other hand Park had the opposite type of relationship with his parents. His parents were very loving and caring towards him, his relationship was the type that Eleanor dreamed she could have with her family. I felt that the character that most developed throughout the book was Park. At first he seemed slightly embarrassed to be friends with Eleanor, but as time went on he openly let everyone know that they were dating. He just had to let down the barriers of caring about what other people thought, in the end he realized it only mattered what he thought of Eleanor. Gender was definitely present throughout this whole book. It is shown when Park thinks he is girly and was doubting liking girls (until Eleanor), Eleanor wearing mens shirts, and even when Park wears makeup to school to entertain Eleanor. The fact that neither ever thought something about them was different because they were more feminine or masculine than normal is not right. They should feel fine in their own bodies without worrying about how others dress and even act. The most stereotypical character when it came to gender was Tina because she was the typical popular girl who everyone looked up to and wanted to be like. She wore makeup and dressed very girly, the total opposite of Eleanor who felt like she was hiding if she wore makeup. 

     The appeal that this book has towards adolescents is the age of the characters, falling in love, and being weird. Anytime that the age of the characters is close to the reader they will typically feel like they can relate since they are the same age. Falling in love is something that is typically included in young adult novels, especially when they are around the age of 16. This is because this is the age where adolescents start to feel that they are falling in love and a majority of them are getting into relationships. Adolescents that read this may relate to the characters because they are weird and don’t conform to societal standards for adolescents their age. I feel that the position this book gives on adolescents is both good and bad depending on what characters are being referred to. When referring to Eleanor and Park it is good, but characters such as Tina and Steve gives adolescents a bad name. They have a negative connotation towards adolescents because they are the typical stereotypical teenagers and do thing such as drinking and smoking. 

Rating: A!!

First off I give it an A because it is a book I have been meaning to read for a while, but also because it was one of those books that you couldn’t put down until you finished. Overall I absolutely loved this book