Book Review by Aarene Storms: Eleanor and Park

Eleanor and Park
by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor is "that kid" -- the girl with the weird clothes, the weird hair, the weird family. She will never, ever fit it to the crowd at her 1986 Nebraska high school.

The first day on the bus, the only seat available is next to Park -- the only "Asian kid" she's ever known. And he won't talk to her.

Inevitably, perhaps, the two fall in love. Deeply, beautifully, and star-crossedly in love.

John Green, author of Fault in Our Stars​ gave the book a dazzling review. A few parents in the Anoka-Hennepin district (Minnesota) called it dangerously obscene.

Read it for yourself. It's not a fast-moving, explosive, car chasing love story.

It's the other kind.

I hope you like it as much as I did.


The events may not have happened; still, the story is true.  --R. Silvern

Aarene Storms, youth services librarian
Richmond Beach and Lake Forest Park Libraries, KCLS