Eleanor & Park made me wonder how much of my life has been inevitable, and since when; specifically, whatever complex of historical and personal factors it was that led up to this being a book that would strike me so personally, and how much of that must be shared with others who've had similar reactions to this one.
This is probably an exaggeration but it feels like everything would've been so different had I not sunk into that succession of bands and artists at just the right time - which has, years later, left me primed to remember and completely get it when misfit adolescents Eleanor (red hair, overweight, horrible home life, bullied at school) and Park (Korean mother, almost always in black, tries to be invisible, later starts wearing eyeliner) find each other in Omaha, 1986 and bond over - among other things - the Smiths and other post-punk, swapped mixtapes and all.
Having said that, while the music is important in its own right, it's also a stand-in for something broader and more universal - a wider type of (teenaged) experience, on which Rowell is pitch perfect in her evocation...whichever way it shakes out, anyhow, Eleanor & Park is very fine.
'I am the sun ...
And the air ... '
This is probably an exaggeration but it feels like everything would've been so different had I not sunk into that succession of bands and artists at just the right time - which has, years later, left me primed to remember and completely get it when misfit adolescents Eleanor (red hair, overweight, horrible home life, bullied at school) and Park (Korean mother, almost always in black, tries to be invisible, later starts wearing eyeliner) find each other in Omaha, 1986 and bond over - among other things - the Smiths and other post-punk, swapped mixtapes and all.
Having said that, while the music is important in its own right, it's also a stand-in for something broader and more universal - a wider type of (teenaged) experience, on which Rowell is pitch perfect in her evocation...whichever way it shakes out, anyhow, Eleanor & Park is very fine.
She could still hear that voice in her head - not his - the singer's. From the Smiths. You could hear his accent, even when he was singing. He sounded like he was crying out.
'I am the sun ...
And the air ... '
