The two spend more time together in secret, since Richie won't allow Eleanor to have a boyfriend, and her mother and siblings' loyalties have shifted to Richie. She tries to reject Park's gifts, believing herself unworthy. Eleanor tries to conceal her living situation from Park, but gets frustrated when he takes some things for granted, like a telephone, batteries, or safety.

One night, Eleanor hears gunshots and calls the police, but they believe Richie's lies over her report. At home, Richie frequently screams at Eleanor's mother and abuses her while drunk. Girls cover her gym locker with sanitary pads, and someone writes disgusting and innapropriate remarks on her school books. They begin to connect.Įleanor is regularly bullied at school. They have a few classes together during which Park notices Eleanor is one of the smartest students in class. When Eleanor is about to cry, Park rudely offers her a seat. They rearrange their seats on the school bus to get her yelled at by the driver. On Eleanor's first day at her new school, the students find her weird. He feels insecure about his size and Asian heritage, despite getting along with the popular kids at school. Park is instead interested in alternative music and comics. Park believes he is a disappointment and is unenthusiastic about taekwondo, which his father values. While his father is tall and masculine, Park takes after his mother in appearance and is shorter than his younger brother. While his family is not affluent, and his parents come from very different backgrounds, his home is filled with love. Park Sheridan has lived in Omaha his whole life. Eleanor has just returned after sleeping on the couch of her mother’s high school friend, since Richie threw her out a year earlier. She patches her clothes in bright colors, wears ribbons in her hair, and creates strange clothing combinations, over which her fellow students bully her. Eleanor does not own a toothbrush or properly fitting clothes. Richie is physically and emotionally abusive to their mother and often drunk. There is one bathroom, and Richie has removed the door and will not allow a curtain for privacy. She is the oldest in a family of two girls and three boys who live with their mother and stepfather, Richie, in a tiny two-bedroom house. Eleanor, a chubby 16-year-old girl with curly red hair, and Park, a half-Korean, 16-year-old boy, meet on a school bus on Eleanor's first day at the school and gradually connect through comic books and mix tapes of '80s music, sparking a love story.Įleanor Douglas is beginning 10th grade. Published in 2012, the story follows dual narratives by Eleanor and Park, two misfits living in Omaha, Nebraska from 1986 to 1987.

Eleanor & Park is the first young adult novel written by Rainbow Rowell.

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