Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

​Everyone was talking about Eleanor & Park back in 2013. In bookstores or online, it was one of those books you just couldn’t ignore. It was my first Rainbow Rowell read, and I was trying to find what the hype was about, only to find nothing. I remember picking it up and putting it down again and again, forcing myself to keep going. It took me almost two months to finish. The spark never came. I was more bored than moved.

Here we have Eleanor and Park who are said not like your typical young adult romantic interests. Eleanor is written to be this "different" girl, but the way she’s described feels incredibly lazy. Rowell treats the red hair, the weird clothes, and the poverty like personality traits rather than actual life circumstances. Even the constant threat of violence in her home is used as a narrative shorthand to make her look "edgy" rather than actually exploring how that trauma shapes her. This is pity bait at its finest. This low-effort writing extends to her family, too; her mom is barely there and her siblings only exist as props to make Eleanor’s life look even more miserable. She lacks a soul outside of her own misery because Rowell is so busy making sure she’s a caricature of a victim that she forgets to let her just be human. Eleanor is a walking pile of sad tropes designed to force the reader's sympathy.

Park's storyline quickly fell into uncomfortable stereotypes. He's a half-Korean kid in 80s Midwest, but calling him "Park"—literally a common surname used as a first name—feels like Rowell just picked a random word from a "Korean 101" list and stopped there. She just used it as a marker to say 'look, he's different,' and then did nothing else with it. In a story about heritage, this choice is never explored, much like how Rowell reduces him to clichés like being good at math and doing "taekwando" (which she misspelled taekwondo fourteen times). It makes Eleanor's gaze feel even more like fetishization. She treats his Asian features like some "exotic" ornament rather than a person.

Set in the author's hometown in 1986 Nebraska, this book throws a bunch of 80s references at us. The Walkman, the tapes, the comics, the music. Throwing in all those details feels like a desperate attempt to build an atmosphere, but none of it adds any depth. Rowell was basically name-dropping bands and songs to make it look vintage, but you could take all those references out and the story wouldn't change at all. It’s just an aesthetic choice that never actually becomes part of the story.

What’s even more messed up is how the book shifts between moods. One minute we're in the middle of a nightmare at Eleanor’s house, with the abuse and the constant fear of Richie, and the next we're expected to gush over them holding hands on the bus. Rowell shouldn't be using a girl's trauma just to make us care more about a high school romance. It's cheap. She’s using Richie’s abuse to give the story some 'edge' without actually doing the work.

The dual POV was a mess. The constant POV jumps became more annoying as the plot stalled, and I couldn't buy their voices at all. Eleanor's inner monologue felt like an adult trying way too hard to sound like a quirky troubled teen girl. Even their conversations were painfully awkward. Not in a cute way, but the kind that is hard to get through. At one point, Park asks if it was possible to rape somebody's hand. Then you have Eleanor telling him he makes her feel like a cannibal. 

And the peak of it all:

That’s how good it felt. She was like one of those dogs who’ve tasted human blood and can’t stop biting. A walrus who’s tasted human blood.

Yup. Eating each other's faces.

By the last third, I was completely done. All that back-and-forth and them not being able to communicate was just a flimsy excuse to stretch the story. I stopped caring if they stayed together. Whatever they had, it wasn't love. Just two kids being intense and weird for no reason. Finishing it was a total drag.

I appreciate that Rowell tried to include diversity, but it’s clear she didn’t bother doing any actual research. You can't just throw in a mixed-race character for the sake of "diversity" and then fill their entire existence with vague assumptions. It’s sloppy songwriting in book form. Even Park’s mom is left as a one-dimensional prop. Rowell traps her in a thick accent and broken English, yet never gives her a voice. Despite her history as a woman brought from Korea after the war, she never shares a single story or perspective from her past—as if her identity was completely erased the moment she stepped into Nebraska. She exists as a flat caricature for the white gaze; an accent, not a human being with a memory.

Culture isn’t an accessory. It shouldn’t be some decoration you just throw in to make a romance feel "interesting." I keep thinking about authors like Gene Luen Yang or Jhumpa Lahiri—their characters actually have a life. Identity is the engine there, not just some label for people to stare at. Rowell’s attempt is paper-thin; she’s going through the motions without actually caring. If you’re going to write about a community that isn't yours, at least do the work. Research, respect, or something. Don't just slap on some recycled "exotic" labels and call it a day.

Rowell isn’t the only one doing this. You see the same thing in Twilight or The Mortal Instruments where the love interest is treated as "exotic." But it feels way worse when it’s a real-world POC character. A romance only works if there’s a balanced POV and actual spine, and Eleanor & Park has none of that. It ends up being demeaning and harmful.

I’ll give it one thing, though. The book does catch that shaky feeling of having your first real crush. That part where every little touch feels way too intense. I almost liked it for a second. But a few decent pages can’t save a story filled with shallow characters and cringey dialogue. The ending left me feeling empty. I don't see it as some deep open ending; the author just ran out of things to say. I really don't get the hype. There’s no deeper meaning here, just a lot of cheesy clichés that made me cringe. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, not even for curiosity's sake. It’s not worth the energy.