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Eleanor & Park

Eleanor & Park

Contemporary LiteratureYA Contemporary
Pages
352
Published
2012
Language
English

Synopsis

Set in Omaha, Nebraska, across the 1986–87 school year, Eleanor & Park is Rainbow Rowell's story of two sixteen-year-olds who fall in love on the wrong side of everything. Eleanor is the new girl: big, awkward, with wild red hair and thrift-store clothes, going home each night to a crowded house ruled by a violent stepfather. Park is a half-Korean kid who has learned to keep his head down and blend into the background of his working-class neighborhood.

They meet on the school bus, where Eleanor takes the only open seat — next to Park. Neither wants to be there. But over weeks of shared comic books and mixtapes, a wary silence turns into something that consumes them both. Told in alternating voices, the novel traces first love in real time: awkward, breathless, and shadowed by the reality of Eleanor's home life.

Honest about class, race, body image, and abuse, Eleanor & Park is a tender, clear-eyed portrait of two misfits who are smart enough to know first love rarely lasts, and brave enough to try anyway.

Prose complexity
4/10

Vibe

EmotionalRomanticNostalgicMelancholic
Coming of AgeMultiple POVs

Genres

Contemporary Literature YA Contemporary Young Adult Comics History Romance Contemporary Romance

About the author

R
Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell writes books. Sometimes she writes about adults (ATTACHMENTS and LANDLINE). Sometimes she writes about teenagers (ELEANOR & PARK and FANGIRL). But she always writes about people who talk a lot. And people who feel like they're screwing up. And people who fall in love. When she's not writing, Rainbow is reading comic books, planning Disney World trips and arguing about things that don't really matter in the big scheme of things. She lives in Nebraska with her husband and two...

Characters

Park SheridanProtagonist

A half-Korean sixteen-year-old who keeps his head down until Eleanor sits beside him.

Eleanor DouglasProtagonist

The new girl, sixteen, with red hair and a home ruled by an abusive stepfather.

Richie TroutAntagonist

Eleanor's stepfather: an alcoholic who terrorises her mother and siblings and is the reason Eleanor has to leave home.

Sabrina DouglasSupporting

Eleanor's mother, who married Richie and treads carefully around him to keep the household calm.

Mindy SheridanSupporting

Park's Korean mother, who runs a hair salon out of the family's garage.

All characters in Eleanor & Park

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Eleanor & Park part of a series?

    No. Eleanor & Park is a standalone novel with no sequel. It was Rainbow Rowell's first book for young adults; her later YA novels — Fangirl, Carry On and their follow-ups — are separate stories with different characters.

  • Why has Eleanor & Park been challenged in schools?

    In 2013 parents in the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota objected to the novel, counting 227 instances of what they called coarse language and sexual content, and asked for it to be pulled from school libraries. A district review committee kept the book, calling it powerful, realistic and appropriate for high-school readers, and the National Coalition Against Censorship publicly supported it.

  • Is there an Eleanor & Park film?

    Not yet. DreamWorks optioned the novel in 2014 and the project stalled; it was revived in 2019 at Picturestart with Plan B Entertainment, with Rainbow Rowell writing the screenplay and Hikari attached to direct from July 2020. No film has been released.

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