Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Publisher: St. Martin's Press      
Publication date: February 26th 2013
My rating: 5 stars

Eleanor is the new girl in town, and with her chaotic family life, her mismatched clothes and unruly red hair, she couldn't stick out more if she tried.
Park is the boy at the back of the bus. Black T-shirts, headphones, head in a book - he thinks he's made himself invisible. But not to Eleanor... never to Eleanor.
Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall for each other. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you're young, and you feel as if you have nothing and everything to lose.

First thing you need to know about Rainbow's books- they're cute but  not overly sweet. Just enough warmth combined with colorful sprinkles. Rainbow's basically offering us a delicious cupcake every time we pick her book up. 

Eleanor & Park is the second Rowell book I read. I read Attachments last October and even though it was a bit weird (because of the sort of  stalker-ish guy) I loved every part of it. In my short review I said her work is 'a Stephanie Perkins of adult sweet romances'. 

In a world of insta-love Rainbow delivers a stellar story about two misfits. During their bus rides they start to read comics together and listen to Park's Walkman. Eleanor lives with her mother, stepfather and 3 other siblings. Her stepdad is a abusing bastard, mom is just taking it and her siblings are tattle tales. On the other side we have Park and his biggest concern is to learn how to drive a stick. 

I'd love to give you more insight about the whole story itself but I'm afraid I'll reveal way too much so you're just going to have to trust my word for it. After all, I'm not one of those easily impressed readers. Hell, check my average GR rating. It's embarrassingly low. 

Aside from the great story you can also rehash on your knowledge of 80's music by listening to E&P playlists HERE.  

It's hard to explain Rainbow's magic. You're either her fan or not. Her books are on my auto-buy list. If you don't mind reading a slow and steady young adult contemporary romance and love authors like Sara Zarr, Stephanie Perkins, Sarah Ockler or Sarah Dessen. Basically, any author with an S in the name  will do. :P