“Eleanor & Park” by Rainbow Rowell

Park:  a run-of-the-mill kid.  Not popular, not a loser, just a guy trying to maintain a low profile amidst the vicious cliques in his Midwest high school.  Eleanor:  Eleanor’s got issues.  A messed-up home life and significant bullying at her new school are playing havoc with her sense of self.  The simple act of trying to find a seat on the school bus (which, most teens know, is a major thing) results in these two 16 year-olds being thrown together.  They don’t like each other, then they like each other, then they move beyond like.  It is a love story, but not a mushy, drippy “I luuuuvvv yoooou” story.  Told in alternating voices, Park tries to navigate girls (which is not easy for any 16 year-old boy) and Eleanor tries to move past the emotional damage her family has done to her.  She’s hard, she’s angry, she’s defensive and she doesn’t trust.  Breaking down the walls she has built to protect herself takes the length of the novel, plus some.  Ms. Rowell does some really neat things from a literary perspective to bring the two together.  At first, their voice are separated by chapter breaks, then pages, then paragraphs.  Eventually, their opening thoughts mirror each other.  It’s like watching a poem of people being built in front of your eyes.  Rowell also gets credit for making the adults fairly complex – the Guidance Director at school “gets it” within her limited capacity to make a difference, the parents aren’t universally absent or one-note.  They are all given pasts that color their present, so that the reader can see the elements in who they become.  Park’s parents, in particular, are so layered that when push comes to shove, their reactions are more human and less predictable than you might think.  I also like the setting (1986 to 1987) – maybe it’s cuz I’m old, but there is something endearing about a tale that takes place before cellphones, computers, and all the many ways we distract ourselves today.  Park and Eleanor connect over a Walkman – would they still connect today if it were an iPod?  Hard to know.  It’s not all fiction, however.  Rainbow Rowell (whose picture looks a whole lot like a grown-up version of Eleanor) makes it clear in the acknowledgements that this is her story.  Maybe it is the truth of it that spoke to me, but “endearing” is a word that is tremendously apropos here.  Yes, the very last sentence had me reaching for a tissue – but don’t think you know how it will end.  Mature, interesting, insightful – and deserving of the Printz Honor it received this year.