Eleanor & Park

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.