Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell.
Let me just start off by saying that I really did like this book. It was fresh, different from what's on the market, and featured several well-rounded characters. But it did not blow me away like I wanted it to. Something about it just didn't sit right with me, and I was up late thinking about it. I couldn't figure out what exactly unsettled me, and not in a good way, about this read. I wanted to say I loved it, but something was wiggling in the back of my mind that wouldn't let me. I think I finally figured it out.
First of all, I agree with Emily's review, because to me, the leap from friendship to romance happened too quickly, and too unbelievably. I, too, bought them becoming friends, but I really felt that their romantic relationship would have been better served by a longer, slow-burn development period. They kind of went straight from "we both like music" to "I need you, I want you, I love you" whispered in the night, and I just didn't find that realistic to either one of the characters.
Note: spoilers abound throughout the rest of this review. Proceed informed.
Really, though, here's the main thing I had an issue with: for all its dismissal of fairy tales, this story is a fairy tale. There's a trend I've noticed in YA recently, and I'm calling it the Abused-Kid-Fantasy. The AKF is the fantasy that every child of abuse has, in which their main hope is that one day, some day, someone will rescue them from this terrible place. Someone will save them from their abuser, and they will live in a happily ever after in which their abuser is gone and they get all the safety and security they lacked in the abusive environment (Another example of this type of story is "I'll Be There," a recently published YA novel). These types of stories detail the abusive environment in a way that makes us horrified, that makes us really really feel for the protagonist. And then, in the end, after some trial or tribulation, the child is saved, the abuser punished, and the happily-ever-after begins.
What I'm about to say about this might seem cruel or harsh. I believe this type of story is damaging, because it sets children up to believe that this type of happy ending really does exist for children of abusive parents. But it doesn't. Eleanor's escape is a fairy tale, a wish, a dream come true. For every real-life Eleanor in the world, there are 100,000 others that never make it out of the abuse, at least not during their childhood. It's like the Divorced-Parents-Reunited-Through-Their-Child trope in kid's movies, but even more toxic.
One of the things that bothers me about this story trope is that the kids never "do the right thing" - i.e, tell an authority figure about the abuse occurring at home. They're afraid of social services, they protect their parents at all costs, and eventually their salvation comes through circumstance or despite their best efforts to keep their lives a secret. While this may be the reality for some, the real way kids escape these horrific environments is by telling the truth.They tell the truth to a teacher, to a friend's parent, to a social worker when they come to visit. That'show the nightmare ends. But in these stories, that never happens. The lesson? Sit tight, stay quiet, and one day, someone will rescue you. That's the kind of thinking that ends up in children getting killed.
I know that Eleanor seems to break this mold by escaping to her uncle's house and telling him the truth. However, in doing this, she leaves her 4 young siblings behind in an abusive environment. She tells herself she doesn't have any way of helping them. But the thing is, she considers telling her guidance counselor before then, and never does. When she tells her uncle, he doesn't call the authorities. Her siblings eventually do get to leave, but that's because Eleanor writes her mother a letter, threatening to tell unless her mother leaves the abusive stepfather. This results in her mom taking the kids and leaving Richie. Here's the thing: You know what happens even less than the one Eleanor in 100,000 abused kids escaping? The abused partner leaving. That. Doesn't. Happen. Sure, it may happen for some, but consider the facts of Eleanor's mom's life: she already let Richie kick Eleanor out for an entire year without protest. She has been with this guy for so long now that she will suffer no complaint from Eleanor about his behavior. She tells her to stay quiet, to lie, to cover up. She lets him do horrible things to herself and to her children for an extended period of time.
This is not the behavior of a woman who leaves. Perhaps I would have bought this, except for this: she defends Richie to Eleanor. She takes Richie's side against Eleanor. When a parent is that far gone, that they'd defend their abuser and the abuser of their children over their actual child, that's far gone. Maybe one in a million come back from that. But Eleanor's mom doesn't seem like the type to do so, not throughout the entire novel. She doesn't do so when Eleanor calls the police, multiple times. We get no indication that Eleanor's mom would ever leave Richie - not that she's thinking about it, not that she'd ever consider it, not that she thinks it's the right thing to do. But in the end, we're supposed to believe that in response to Eleanor's threat to tell the truth, she takes the kids and leaves. I don't buy it. That's a fairy tale. And it's a nice one to believe in, but it doesn't happen.
The issues of how the abuse is handled are really what stuck out to me, and why I couldn't like this book as much as I wanted to.
Here are a few more bits about the actual story:
Things I liked:
~Eleanor. That whole thing of being yourself when it's not popular, being cool but not knowing it, not being afraid of being unique but yet intensely aware of the social criticism you face- it was done so well in her character. She's the girl who, after high school, is going to be the coolest cat of all. I love that we got to see that, even though she didn't. Also, she's not afraid to speak up for herself. When Park says something offensive, she tells him. She at one point says, "No, I don't want to talk anymore" and walks away from him saying a hurtful comment. I love how she has her own personhood. She felt real.
~Park, and his evolution. While the novel seems like it's Eleanor's story, he really does do a lot of changing and growing. And I loved his family dynamic.
~Park's jump-kick. That whole scene, and its repercussions, had me laughing aloud.
~Eleanor's friends. Never really featured, but a great addition whenever they popped up.
~How Park's attraction to Eleanor is depicted. Sweet, honest, and a little bit groundbreaking. He's not physically attracted to her because she's fat - he's physically attracted to her because he finds her beautiful.
Things I didn't like:
~The secondary characters were inconsistent - in that, some felt like rounded people, and some felt very flat.
~Emily's point above, the development of their relationship.
~Eleanor describes herself as fat. Some people call her fat. But then some people say she's not actually "that fat." She thinks she is ugly, and other people tell her that as well. But she gets a makeover, and suddenly she appears to be a dewy sex goddess. I couldn't tell what we were supposed to believe - is she an ugly duckling now, but will be pretty once she grows into her features? Is she hideously fat, or just bigger than average? The description felt inconsistent, but perhaps that's just how it is in reality. You're as fat as you think you are, but other people don't think you're fat at all. I had something happen last week where a friend of mine described a girl as "Really heavy, like, really fat" and the implication she was trying to produce was that this girl was fat and I was not. But here's the thing: I'm fat. Curvy, plus-sized, however you want to say it. So perhaps Eleanor's experience is like all of ours, in that her perceived level of fatness changes in the eye of the beholder. I just wanted a little more clarification.
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