Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell

This book completely broke my heart. Although I don't think many people would have the same strong feelings as I do about it, I know it got to a lot of people. This isn't a happy contemporary romance novel, it's not. It's cute, it's funny, it's heartwarming.. but it's also heartbreaking, it's sad & it makes you really re-evaluate your life.

I'm going to start off by saying, I really related to Eleanor a lot. She's really insecure, she doesn't have the perfect home life, she has issues, and I'm the same. But God oh God, I could not even begin to imagine the things she was going through. It really broke me.


Likes:

• I liked the characters. Park was just the most perfect person ever, well as perfect as any misfit could be. Eleanor was so relatable, I couldn't not like her. 
• I loved the writing, as always Rowell did an amazing job at creating these realistic normal everyday characters and making it all realistic. Her writing drew me in and I honestly felt like I was part of the story.
• There's not really much to say about contemporary novels, because I don't want to give any spoilers or ruin anyone's experiences reading this, but this is obviously a romance, and they're obviously going to be spending time together, and I just loved those little moments when Park would do something and Eleanor would practically stop breathing because she just couldn't believe her luck. 
• I liked that Rowell explored sensitive and delicate themes that not many YA books seem to have. There was bullying and there was abuse and allsorts, (not that I liked those things) but realistically, they happen in the real world, they've happened to me and to people I know and I'm pretty sure to over 50% of the world's population.

- I put myself in her shoes and I wished I had someone like Park to help me get through my hard-times and struggles, but then again, I would never wish Eleanor's life on even my worst enemy. I literally well up when I think about it.

Dislikes:

• I didn't like that the book made me sad. I was glued to it and it brought back so many memories and just made me compare my life, and meh this isn't really a genuine dislike, it's just more personal. 
• I didn't like the insta-love that seemed to happen. I'm just not really a love story kind of girl so it really made me roll my eyes. 
• I didn't like the ending, I think the book could have been a little longer, and things could have been cleared up more at the end, I really hated the abrupt ending actually. 

Overall, I really loved this book, I gave it 5/5 on goodreads, despite it's faults because it really made me re-evaluate my life and I just sat there after I finished and thought, wow, do I really have the right to complain about my life now? This book has definitely left a mark on me, and I know I'll continue to think about it all the time, and it's that kind of book that will always stay in the back of your mind.