Eleanor and Park was a book everyone in my high school had talked about. It was everyone’s go to Summer read, and of course, it so happened to be mine. A high school love story that took place in the 80’s? That was right up my alley however I did not feel attached to the characters at first and maybe that was because I couldn’t relate to either character.
Eleanor was a female with curly red hair who wore mismatching clothes on purpose as well as she was living in poverty. She was the outcast who kept to herself. Eleanor was living with younger siblings and only her mother trying to escape from Richie, her abusive stepfather. Park was an Asian american male living in the middle class. Popular among his peers.
This book is a story of both characters coming of age and forming an unlikely relationship overcoming the obstacles that are set out against them. It is a historical novel because it takes place in the 1980s even though it was written in 2010s. It talks about popular music artists from then like Joy Division and old technology like Walkman that even I myself had to look up so that I understood what it was. If I were to read historical novels, they would have to have some type of component I could relate to whether it be the location of the occurrence or the age of the characters when it happened.
A Novel Idea 