My thoughts after reading Eleanor & Park By Rainbow Rowell

Confession, I have just finished reading Eleanor & Park. My husband bought me Rainbow Rowell’s books after I kept talking about Attachments. I had not read Eleanor & Park right away because I had a couple of books that I just checked out from the library and there was a book I was reading for work. I felt so bad for those library books, every time I would pick one up I kept eyeballing at Eleanor & Park.
 

I felt just like I did when I was reading Attachments, I could not stop thinking about the story and the characters. Eleanor & Park has made me realize I am in love with Rowell’s writing. Eleanor & Park was one of the best books I have read this year, along with Attachments.

After reading it I can see why so many people love this book. The characters, Eleanor & Park, are real. Real being that their lives are complicated and makes you realize sometimes when we fall in love its messy, but if we truly love the other person its worth fighting for.

I enjoyed the fact that it was not another girl meets boy, and boom they’re in love. Eleanor & Park’s love grow out of their friendship. They learn to mutually respect one another and their lives separate and together.

While Eleanor’s home life is not the best, it explains a lot of her reactions and fears she has towards becoming Park’s girlfriend. When Eleanor & Park first fall in love, I kept thinking of the Dr. Seuss quote, “We are all a little weird and, life’s a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with then and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

While some people may say the characters are way too young to feel this way. Their love was not done in a Romeo and Juliet way either where, everything is so melodramatic. I think that Eleanor & Park reminds us that true love is and can be real at any age. I cried when Park kept waiting for Eleanor to write or call. I kept saying, why won’t she write to him, why doesn’t just she just call him. He is waiting for her, he always has. When he finally got the post card, it felt like they never really ended. It also made me happy cry for Park when she sent him that post card.

Sorry about that, but I think I made my point with that little rant, on how this book emotionally touches the readers heart. Books are wonderful journeys, but when we find the stories and characters that we emotionally connect to we should share those.

My thoughts after reading Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

This blog may not be a review in the sense that it’s going to sum up the whole book chapter by chapter, or comparing it to other literature. I am going to write more about my thoughts and how the book made me feel. Because isn’t that what books should be? Books should for an extension of human emotions, a place to escape within our imaginations, as a companion, etc.

If anyone reads my tweets, you know that I finished the Attachments in two days, and feel in love with the characters. I wanted to blog a little more about the book because I feel that 160 words are sometimes just not enough. Hopefully it’s not a spoiler for those who have not read the book, and it’s just enough for those of you who have read the book to understand what I am discussing. Perhaps, someone has already mentioned these things since the book has been out a while. And that’s okay because it just means that I am not alone in my falling in love with this book.

As some of you may or may not know, Attachments is a love story where boy reads girl’s emails, and boy falls in love with girl before even knowing what she looks like. Girl also crushes on boy, not knowing he has been reading her emails. She crushes only because she has a boyfriend. In my opinion underneath the romance is a story of how when faced with certain situations, the outcome will reveal who we truly are.

When reading the emails between Beth and Jennifer, I could not help but laugh at loud at their inside jokes, which did not make me feel like an outsider. I liked how their emails were written in a way that helped you see how they viewed themselves, how they think, and acted without having to go into your traditional book description of characters or places. When I was reading Lincoln’s chapters where he was putting it together why Beth and Jennifer had not emailed, my heart broke for Jennifer, as I put it together myself.

Oh Lincoln. You can’t help but feel for the guy. When you read Lincoln’s chapters you can’t help but smile at his victories, and find his awkwardness endearing and cute. What can I say I love dorks, which is why I married one. When Beth and Lincoln finally kissed, and realized they love each other, I could not help but do a happy dance and smile the whole next day in sharing in this happy ending.

I tweeted that I feel in love with the characters of this book. I laughed, cried, and smiled with them. I have not read a book like this in a while. It’s the kind of book that I could not put down. The only reason it took me two days to read is because at work I can sit a read a book. However, during my break time I could not help but think will Beth finally put two and two together with who her “cute guy” is. I wonder how the book is going to end. I hope it ends on a happy note. I only have a couple of more hours left in the day before I can start reading again. Not to mention this was the kind of book where I felt my husband needed to be informed of the major events that had occurred as I read the funny moments, and said my oh no’s during the sad times.

After reading Attachments, I could not help but wonder what if they made this book a movie? Then I thought no better not think that because only few movies based on books have, in my opinion, captured the essence of the book. The essence being what I have wrote about, how the book makes you feel. But that’s a whole other blog.