Eleanor and Park ~Rainbow Rowell~

          I love going into books with no presuppositions. No one had recommended this book to me; I had heard about it, but I knew nothing more about it than its popularity. I immediately fell in love with the writing style, the plot, and the character development. I cried and laughed throughout the entire novel. This book taught me a lot but most importantly: the beauty of my soul is more important than my physical beauty.

          Eleanor lives in a broken family; her stepdad is a druggie and alcoholic who beats her mom, abuses her, and can’t support his family. Park lives in an elite family; his parents are madly in love, and he never lacks any material possession. When Eleanor moves to Park’s neighborhood, she begins to sit next to him on the bus. Their relationship begins icy but slowly crescendos into passionate love. 

Eleanor is teased at school for being fat. She can’t afford nice clothes so she wears old men’s clothes. Yet, through all this, Park sees the beautiful person she is. He notices the things about her that not many care to notice, and he appreciates her beautiful soul like no one else does. 

          The most important lesson portrayed in this book for me was that though others may see me as ugly or weird, the beauty of my soul is what matters to the right people. In other words, the size of my heart is more important than my dress size. 

~

“She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.”

“He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard.”

“I just want to break that song into pieces and love them all to death.”

“..I love your name. I don't want to cheat myself out of a single syllable.”

“He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them. Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. And Eleanor disintegrated.”

“Only for today, not ever.”

“You’re the kind of person I want to be with when I want to be alone.”

“And when Eleanor smiled, something broke inside of him. Something always did.”

“...and his eyes were so green they could turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.”