NOVEL REVIEW: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

            Recently I’ve discovered that reviews rarely tell the truth about the book, especially when they come from “professionals” in the field. (Oh, yeah. I did it: quotation marks.) When I’m trying to decide whether or not to read a book, I always go to the readers for their opinions, and even then I have to be careful about ferreting out who’s telling the truth and who’s obviously bought into the media-crazed drivel surrounding “critically-acclaimed” pieces of “art.” (Let me translate: carcasses and bags of vomit dressed up with bows and little stickers. That’s right. I’m lookin’ at YOU, Life of Pi.)

            Well, I wouldn’t call Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell exactly those things, but it did push the limit into the break zone and fall into “drivel.”

Look at the cover. The insides
should deliver the implied
quirkiness the art tells of!

            The panel blurb tells the potential reader that we can expect a sort of offbeat romance between two high school misfits in 1986. And me being who I am—an exterminator and total repudiator of all things cliché—I picked up the book, brand new, and decided to give it a chance. I don’t normally dig the whole “romance” category, due to the very reason that I am a Repudiator. I wanted Eleanor & Park to be different, I really did. Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want.

            (I’m talkin’ to YOU, Life of Pi.)

            The story starts kind of slow, with all the establishment of a normal romance. Boy meets girl (boy swears at girl because he thinks she’s drawing attention to stay hidden), they don’t necessarily click at first (he thinks she’s weird, she thinks he’s a loner on purpose, even though he’s kind of cute), they eventually find something in common (comic books, music, being misfits), which leads to mutual affection (which is slow at first because he’s worried about image and she’s worried about her douche stepdad), they have a spat that leads to a small breakup initiated by a close family member (Park’s mom), they get back together because of the same family member, then everything progresses in a kind of halting gait that stumbles upward almost like a financial chart…no, just like a financial chart.

            Only, here’s the thing. One of the “professionals” reviewed the book as “heartbreaking.” You know what happens in this book that’s supposedly heartbreaking? Eleanor moves from Nebraska to live with her uncle in Minnesota, safe and sound where she won’t be kicked out by her stepdad and doesn't get to see Park anymore. Because, honestly, in a world like we live in, living away from a bad home and a first boyfriend is SO the worst thing that could happen to us. And the reasons this bugs me are because (1) Eleanor is so much tougher than this gives her credit for. Sure she has a lot of internal thought about how her mom took her stepdad’s side, who wouldn’t have those thoughts? But Eleanor’s made out to be iron-clad, not soft like this suggests; and (2) having to move away from home for safety reasons away from your boyfriend is not heartbreaking (except in a first-world country like ours), especially with how tough Eleanor is made out to be Of course she would have tried to save her mom and siblings, but with her apparent speed of thought and quick mind, you'd think she would have found another way instead of placing herself back in such a dangerous environment. You know what would be heartbreaking? You know what would have caused the story to shoot through the roof with amazing amounts of disbelief and the feel that life truly isn’t fair, even when we think we can save someone from what’s going on in their life? If Eleanor or Park had died. Yes, I said it.

            Someone.

            Should’ve.

            DIED.

            Think about it: The book ends with Park getting a postcard from Eleanor that has three words on it (presumably, “I love you,” which she never said to his face). After 308 or so pages of buildup with Eleanor’s dysfunctional family, you know what happens? …wait for it…

            NOTHING.

Tell 'em, Merida. TELL THEM.

            That’s right; not one heartbreaking thing except that Richie is a creep and makes his “family” live in near-squalor. What would have ended the book better than a look back from a grown Eleanor or Park about how that experience of first love and what happened changed their entire outlook on life and what was important? That couldn’t have failed—if written right.

            And that’s not the only weak aspect of the book. Far from it.

            First, the issues that were presented were brushed lightly through the book instead of making it deeper and more thought-provoking than it ended up being. You have two dysfunctional families here. Park’s, which likes to sweep stuff under the rug and act like everything’s okay while tension simmers and a fight explodes and they make up and do the same thing over again; and Eleanor’s, which likes to sweep things under the rug while Richie’s around and talk about it secretly and yell at each other and simmer and never make up. Not to mention you had the entire bullying issue at the school and the self-confidence with both Park and Eleanor. Potential littered this book so heavily that it could’ve been given a citation. Sadly, the litter stayed in the gutter and was never swept up to be dealt with properly.

            Several issues were frequent and ofttimes presented major issues for Eleanor and Park both, but they were glossed over with some crap-colored veneer and left out in the blue as if to say, “THERE! I fixed it!”

No, not fixed.

Um, gross. Definitely not fixed.

...honestly? NO.

WHAT THE HECK??? STOP BEING SO STUPID!!!

            For example, the whole Tina thing. Why did she randomly stop bullying Eleanor and actually help her near the end of the book, then never inquire to Park what happened to the girl that sort of randomly disappeared from school without a warning?

            And who plugged the toilet in the gym locker room with Eleanor’s clothes, and why?

            And Park’s self-induced exile. What brought him to the point where he wanted to be out of the crowd even though he skirts around admitting he could be just as popular as the back-of-bussers, yet chooses, far before Eleanor arrives, to be an outcast? Without any given explanation?

            And why Eleanor never started to think better of herself, even at the 280-page mark, and in a book with only 320 pages, that’s a boo-boo.

NOT THAT BOO BOO.

                I mean, what? Come on. Seriously, self-confidence issues don’t last that long when you’re doused with love like Park and his family doused on Eleanor at that point, not to mention the fact that DeNice and Beebi were really, really strong pillars of support in her school life.

            And that’s another thing: Why did DeNice and Beebi never invite Eleanor out anywhere if they were such good friends? They show up in gym and lunch, disappear, and we don’t hear from them again until the next gym or lunch scene. Really, Rainbow Rowell? Really? So much for “supporting” characters; the best chances at normalcy in Eleanor’s school hours—because I guarantee you Park wasn’t always there—is stripped from her all the time. This infrequency is the equivalent of giving a blind man a cane some days and taking it away on others. (“Hey, I’m glad I gave that to you yesterday, but today, nah. Today you’re on your own.”)

            And why is the fact that Eleanor and Park are honors students so highly stressed if it never plays into a situation in the entire 320-page “smart” romance? Ever? This fact is mentioned so many times, you’re bound to think, “Hey, this is important.” Guess what? IT’S NOT. The topic is never touched on besides passing thoughts and getting Eleanor into the same classes as Park. One word:

            And Park’s obviously and overtly under-used taekwondo skills. He uses a jump reverse hook to Steve’s head while the guy’s picking on Eleanor, and Park’s dad, who’s pretty much the taekwondo master, shrugs it off like, “Hey, cool. You were in a fight and did an awesome move. Good for you.” Um, if my kid who I thought was a screw-up actually pulled off a move like this, I’m pretty sure I’d have a bigger reaction. (After being upset they started a fight, of course. But still. Who wouldn't be impressed?)

            And why Park never did anything about Richie when he, Park, found out what had happened to Eleanor and her family. He could have at least called State Troopers if the Omaha Flats-area police department cared so little. You know, Park, for an honors student you’re not quite as bright as you should be.

            Aaaand the kicker: Richie’s douchebaggery. The biggest thing about this book is that Richie, Eleanor’s stepdad, is a total ass, and we’re never given resolution. Yeah, I know, life doesn’t always give us resolution, but that’s why we don’t sit around and wait for it. We make it happen. If the person won’t listen to us, we forgive them and move on. That way it rests on that person’s head and not ours; that way our hearts are settled and theirs can stew for all we care, it’s not ours to deal with once we let it go. (To wit, Matthew 6:14-15.)

            That being said, here are my problems with Richie.

(1)   He never shows any crude or weird interest in Eleanor, so why would he have any motive whatsoever to write that stuff on her books or freak out about the stuff in her fruit box? Honestly, he goes through this book doing nothing but sitting on the couch or at the bar, drinking both places or sleeping it off, and doesn’t pay a hoot of attention to Eleanor. This. Makes. NO. SENSE.

(2)   He beats his wife, but the kids, excluding Eleanor, he treats like gold. Coming from a family with an abusive father, I know that this is very seldom the case. The abuser—my dad, in this case—abused my mom any way but physically (she warned him that if he knocked her down, he better make sure she stayed there or he’d know it) and hit my brothers (if he’d have hit me, Mom would’ve really beaned him beyond repair). Eleanor’s family-wide abuser—Richie, in that case—ignored her, was violent with her mom, and left the kids alone, even the ones that weren’t his. I’ve never seen this before in abuse cases. And, no, it’s not in the “originality vein” because “originality” for life-based fiction uses issues that are…well, life-based.

(3)   Richie kicks Eleanor out for no reason. She was typing song lyrics on a typewriter. In her room. While the TV was on in the other room. And the door was shut. I’m pretty sure that unless the inventor of the cannon had a hand in the keys’ sound, Richie wouldn’t have heard her typing. Not even a little. And besides that, this reason seems to have escalated out of nowhere, because Eleanor doesn’t give any other definitive purpose for being kicked out besides that one incident with the typewriter. How much sense does this make? In a word,

(4)   If the cops in town knew about Richie’s problems and douchebaggery, why did they shrug off Eleanor’s phone call when they would have known due to his previous character that Richie had done something to make his stepdaughter call the cops? I mean, come on. Really, Rainbow Rowell? Really???

It's...it's so beautiful!

So! Eleanor & Park ultimately served as a reminder to me, personally, that one should NEVER trust “rave reviews” and the “professionals” that give them; that readers should always be consulted before picking something up, because they are the ultimate ones to be trusted; that I really shouldn’t buy books I don’t plan on keeping anyway so I have a little extra money in my pocket. (Thank you dearly, Mom, for bringing me back down to earth and reminding me of the realm called “Library!”)

When all 320 pages have passed and all we’ve gotten is a skim-milk Romeo & Juliet redo, which seems to be an awful fashion lately, we have another addition to the pile of books never to be read. Honestly. Just don’t. Eleanor & Park gets 2 torn pages out of 10.