Book 15/30.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Eleanor & Park is a novel centred on… you guessed it, Eleanor and Park 😅
Eleanor, a chubby 16-year-old girl with curly red hair, and Park, a 16-year-old biracial Korean boy, meet on a school bus on Eleanor’s first day at the school and gradually connect through comic books and mixtapes of 1980s music, sparking a love story. Set over one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits smart enough to know first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.
I first read this in 2016 and rated it 5 stars. In fact, I loved it sooo much that in my Goodreads review all I had to say was “❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️” This time around I rated it one star less, and I gotta say I am not loving the fact that rereading some of my favourite 5-star reads has revealed that they are no longer… well, 5-star reads 😭
I especially need to be careful with the Young Adult rereads as I get older and move away from being… well, a young adult. Because there was nothing wrong with the story this time around, it just did not make my heart sing the way it did 10 years ago.
** A guide to ratings **
1 star – did not like it
2 stars – it was okay
3 stars – liked it
4 stars – really liked it
5 stars – it was amazing