A Controversial Novel: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park is funny, cute, and charming, but this book might not be the best novel that I’ve read this year. It follows the story of the two main characters, namely Eleanor and Park. Eleanor is a new girl in school who has this beautiful, curly, red hair but was often called a big girl. She usually dressed in men’s clothing and was often described as an introvert. She’s brilliant, but she has these walls around her to keep people from getting close to her.

Park is an Asian-American high schooler who loves music. His world was dedicated to listening to his favorite music or musicians and reading comic books. These two main characters have an unexpected interaction in their school bus on the first day of their school. Then their sparkly love story begins.

I honestly say that this book is problematic not because of the plot or the story itself but because of its characters’ descriptions. This is the first book that I’ve read by Rainbow Rowell because a lot of people recommended this book to me. They said that the plot and the story are superb. I would say that there’s no problem with the story, but the problem is that I was not too fond of the author’s attitude in describing her characters, especially when she told or introduced Eleanor.

It was racist, there were so many inappropriate words she used, and I felt mad while reading it. When Rainbow Rowell described Eleanor as a big fat girl, I dropped the book and didn’t want to read it all, but I still gave it a chance and appreciated the story.

Racism is one of the prominent controversial issues in our world, and I honestly didn’t support the way Rainbow use it to make fun of her character. There’s also a part of the book that Rainbow said that Eleanor didn’t deserve Park to be her boyfriend because of her body or something like that and I felt embarrassed after reading it.

At some point, I like the plot of this novel, the way she discusses family issues, especially when she described the relationship of Eleanor to her stepdad. And Richie, the step-father of Eleanor, is such an annoying character like he always makes some way to insult and even bully Eleanor from how she dressed and looked. Luckily, on the bright side of a track, Park’s Family is such a perfect one, especially Park’s mom. She takes care of Eleanor and even builds Eleanor’s confidence.

The characters are great, the story is good, and I also felt the two protagonists’ tender love story. There are so many chapters that made me laugh because of their innocence when it comes to different things, which makes me blush from the way they love each other even though some people are not in favor of their relationship. And I’m also not satisfied with the ending of this book.

This book is a great one for entertainment, the narration is quite good, but I’m not recommending this to those who are sensitive when it comes to racism; I mean, I wouldn’t say I liked the way Rainbow described her characters in this book. Lastly, this book is not your typical Young Adult (YA) romance.