Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

It’s 1986 in Omaha, and sixteen-year-olds Eleanor and Park are about to fall in love. They just don’t know it yet. Park is half Korean, loves to read Watchmen comics and listen to punk music on his Walkman. Eleanor is the whitest red-headed white girl who ever lived, loves to re-read Watership Down and never listens to music because she is too afraid that her evil stepfather will take it away from her. They meet not cute on their shared school bus and all Park can think is how weird Eleanor seems: “With crazy hair, bright red on top of curly. And she was dressed like she wanted people to look at her. She reminded Park of a scarecrow or one of the trouble dolls his mom kept on her dresser. Like something that wouldn’t survive in the wild.” Park feels sorry for the strange girl, so he lets her sit next to him and before he knows it, she’s reading his comics over his shoulder and he’s making her mix tapes of The Smiths and Joy Division because ”this bizarre girl is funny and cool and smart and she just gets him in a way no one else ever has.” And Eleanor can’t believe that slender, steady Park actually likes chubby, klutzy her: “She hadn’t told him that he was prettier than any girl, and that his skin was like sunshine with a suntan. And that’s why she hadn’t said it. Because all her feelings for him–hot and beautiful in her heart–turned to gobbledygook in her mouth.” But even as their oddball love blossoms in the most Some Kind of Wonderful way ever, Eleanor can’t bear to tell Park the whole truth about herself and her mixed up family. And after she meets his Avon saleswoman mom and ex-military dad, she is sure that Park will never be able to understand the chaos that she comes from. But that’s the thing about love. It can save you if you if you trust it. And when Eleanor finds herself with no one else to turn to, she must trust Park’s love to save them both. This story is not new. If you’ve seen this or this, or read this, then you know the score. But what is new here is how the author portrays young love–with a brio and honesty that just took my breath away, it was so fresh and true. My god, I felt sixteen again (and let me tell you friends, that was AWHILE ago.) If you want to experience what a first love feels like or feel your first love all over again, you MUST read this book.