Final Rating: ★★
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It took just over a month for me to read another book, it’s quite unfortunate. 😔 I’m not exactly *crushing* my 2024 reading goals yet, but I’m hopeful that this book pulled me out of the slump (although I think I’ve been saying that to myself every time I finish a book lately).
I picked up Eleanor and Park off of Libby as a phone book (what’s that?) this week. If you prefer to own your books, you can order a copy at this link. Eleanor and Park has been on my reading list since middle school and it was one of those “Lucky Day” skip-the-line sort of library books, so I figured no better time to start than now. When the book first released in 2012, I was so excited because I overheard that it was a soul-crushing romance (yes, I was a Fault in Our Stars fangirl). I guess between soccer, school and life, I just never got around to reading Eleanor and Park. Until now!
I can safely report back now that it is not a soul-crushing romance like younger me thought (and probably many teens worldwide think) the book is. If anything, I’m somewhat torn/disturbed that this is marketed as a YA romance.
I’m going to start by addressing the *interesting* stereotypes that are brought up throughout the book so many times that it was distracting and took away from the plot. The Wikipedia article of the book lists a few of the problematic descriptions/plot points in the book. I think this book can be easy to read at face value, but when you put all the weird things that Rowell said together in a list, it becomes easy to acknowledge that something’s off-putting about her depiction of the Korean-American experience.
This is a YA book, and I don’t think Rainbow Rowell crafted this well enough to be read by all audiences. Maybe adults, but not teens. When I think about my own experience consuming poorly-done South Asian representation in media, as an adult, I feel like I’m able to acknowledge, cringe, and move on. However, when I consider myself reading this book as an impressionable teen, I would have been so hurt and embarrassed if the main character was Indian American and was described as a “stupid Desi kid” every five sentences (and I say “Desi” because I’m not usually described by others as “Asian”). My point is that when we invoke empathy and simply place ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we can see how this is harmful. Especially if this was being marketed as a diverse story.
If they were going to focus on why Park was so different, bringing up his Asian-ness in every next sentence, I wish they would have given more closure to his internalized racism. Emasculation in the portrayal of East Asians is something I didn’t even formally learn about until a media studies class I took in college. Should we really be covering this in a YA book if it’s not going to be done well? I felt like it was acknowledged and perpetuated rather than acknowledged and explained/squashed. Moreover, there were a lot of Sheridan family dynamics that could have been explored if Rainbow Rowell simply did more informed research.
A sprinkle of white saviorism really came out when Rainbow Rowell said in an interview, “Why is Park Korean? Because I think there should be more Asian-American characters in YA, especially boys. (And also more chubby girls.) Because it’s up to people like me, who write, to write them” (from the Wikipedia article). She publicly announced that it was her personal mission to amplify Asian-American voices through her characters then truly fumbled the bag.
If she felt like she had to be the one to convey the Korean-American experience, I wish she did some more research. Or co-wrote the book. Or just got more people to read it before publication. I’m not saying don’t write at all. Just write what you know and help others write what they know. And if you’re writing about something new, you have to know your sh*t to be considered “writing what you know”. I think it’s easy to agree that Rainbow Rowell showed she doesn’t know the Korean-American experience.
Beyond my disappointment with Rainbow Rowell’s depiction of Park and his family, I honestly just wasn’t compelled by the romance in this book. I will now be discussing key plot points so spoilers ahead!!
I wonder if this was supposed to be a Romeo and Juliet retelling; the English class scene and impending sense of doom I felt throughout the book certainly made me feel like it was. I agree with the whole idea that we love Romeo and Juliet because it reminds us of what it’s like to be young and in love. Parts of this book felt so nostalgic and familiar, like a montage of all my school crush fantasies. However, just like my school crush fantasies, this all felt rushed and too forced. 😔
Taking a step back though, I find it hard to believe that this arc would have ever happened in a real-life scenario. How did Park become “the sun” when just five minutes ago, Eleanor couldn’t stop calling him a “stupid Asian kid”? We can’t just blame hormones here, the whole thing is too rushed and unnatural, but it’s probably not supposed to be realistic.
I just think this book would have been more compelling if Eleanor and Park were just platonic friends who really cared about each other. As I read this book, I was constantly thinking, This poor girl needs help, not love. I kept thinking about Demon Copperhead, which I’m still working through. That book is a reminder of how broken Child Protective Services is in America; I truly felt for Eleanor, she was stuck. And what she needed was a stable friend, not the crazy ups and downs of high school romance can be. I think it was really lucky for Eleanor that Park was patient and as close to perfect as you can get as a fifteen-year-old boyfriend (aside from his “why can’t she stay awake” moment, which I can forgive as human).
However, despite all the luck and unrealistic gushy love Rainbow Rowell inserts into this story, we still don’t get a happy ending. I have no idea what happened to Eleanor’s mom and the kids (maybe I missed an important clue somewhere?) and there was no justice served to Richie (muddy snow does not count). Park suffers heartbreak in every unsent letter he writes and when he finally starts to heal, Eleanor reels him back in on the last page. Now we have to contend with long distance and the possibility of one waiting for the other. It’s too painful.
All of this to say, I probably wouldn’t recommend this book. There are probably better high school romances out there that are less problematic and incomplete. I’m not sure which ones those are yet, but in the meantime, I’m going to go back to reading the Hunger Games prequel on my phone.
