Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

★★★★ 1/2

"Eleanor was right.  She never looked nice.  She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something."

"I want everyone to meet you.  You're my favorite person of all time."

With her crazy red hair and wild clothes, Eleanor is not only bullied at her new school, but has to deal with her abusive stepfather at home.  Park, being half-white and half-Korean and having different interests as his classmate, doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere either.  When the two teenagers meet on the school bus, a friendship begins over comic books and 80s music.  Eleanor and Park soon experience the intensity of first love and Eleanor spends all of her free time with Park’s family.  When her stepfather finds out that she has a boyfriend, Eleanor is forced to run away to her uncles house in Minnesota.  She decides it is better not to keep in contact with Park if they can’t be together, but the story ends with her sending him a postcard, leaving readers to hope that their love with survive the distance.

I love Love LOVED this book.  I was going to buy it shortly after Christmas, but it was full price so I figured I'd wait.  Less than a week later, I ended up winning it off a random blog I found.  I was super excited and couldn't put it down for days once I started reading it.  Rowell does an amazing job of capturing high school love: both the excitement and the heartache.  It was cute and quirky and I loved the mix of 80s music thrown in.  This book was amazing - I only wish I it would have been out about ten years ago :)

When I was searching for a book cover, I found a ton of  pictures online:

  

"Early in the novel, Park's English teacher asks him why "Romeo and Juliet" has survived 400 years.  With Eleanor looking on, Park says: 'Because people want to remember what it's like to be young? And in love?' After a moment, he adds, 'Is that right?'

It is.  Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it's like to young and in love with a girl, but also what it's like to be young and in love with a book." - John Green, The New York Times Book Review