Eleanor is the new girl at school, who’s quiet and who dresses weird and whom everyone calls Big Red because of her hair and her weight. Park is a fairly popular kid with a fairly normal life. Their two very different worlds come together when Park scoots over to make room for Eleanor on the bus one morning. They slowly become sort-of friends, and then more-than friends. But Eleanor is difficult to get close to, because her homelife is awful: shitty mom, shitty dad, and even shittier stepdad. Because of them, she doesn’t even have a toothbrush, not to mention the capacity to believe in the good in other people. When Eleanor can hardly believe that Park could possibly like her, and when Park feels much the same about her, how can such a relationship be anything but doomed?

It was…okay. I think my reading of it suffered from hearing so much hype about it for so long. I was expecting miraculous and instead got a good, but not exceptionally so, YA romance. Yes, Eleanor’s story is important representation, and yes, I suspect that if I had read it when I was in junior high I would have had heart eyes for it, but now the romance bit was just too heavy handed for me. So, I think it’s probably spot on for its intended audience, but it’s not a YA that carries over well to older audiences (or at least this particular member of said audience). ( )

WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT ENDING ( )

I DNFed after 78 pages. I had no idea going into this how problematic it was. At first I thought the racist remarks were a conscious choice to illustrate how racism looked in the '80s, or to illustrate how Park's so-called "friends" othered him and ultimately led him to Eleanor, who was considered an outcast. But after reading loads of reviews, it became clear to me that Eleanor fetishized Park and that Park's internalized racism is never resolved (according to an article by Packwood for Medium in 2022--like I said, I did not finish the book). ( )

I have heard SO much about this book. And it was fine -- definitely everything promised: a sweet romance between two non-conventional leads, which brought diversity to the world of YA realistic romance. But the biggest problem I always have with Rowell books is the romance -- it's too sappy, too sudden, too forced -- and this book is mostly romance. (Also, Eleanor's abusive family, which is very sad and a little over the top.) So, a good book, but not for me. ( )

All the best and worst things I remember from the 80's. Mixed tapes, Prefab Sprout, boys wearing eye liner, drawing all over the covers of your textbooks, and first kisses.

This was also much more emotional charged and painful than I expected. Overall, very good. I do love Rainbow Rowell's writing. ( )