Eleanor & Park: Fall in love with love

Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something. - Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

There are many love stories I have read which I have found endearing, for example, I always cry (read wail) after reading Love Story by Erich Segal and I have read it like a zillion times ( not because I love to cry but because I genuinely love the book) and then there is The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks which made me well up, but there is just something about Eleanor and Park which got my nerves tingling. And isn't that the fantasy definition of love?

You know those love stories where either the guy or the girl are so gorgeous or both are looking for love and destiny bumps them into each other or one of them is sick and the other has had a similar experience and therefore can relate to it? In short, those love stories where there is always reason for the characters to fall in love? Well, Eleanor & Park doesn't give you that reason. The love between Eleanor and Park is as irrational as it can get. And I think that's how love should be. If someone asks why you love the other person, there should be no answer. Just a, "Yeah. Well. I just do."

I love this book because it caught me in an unexpected romance. The characters were so normal that I was not expecting anything unusual and yet there they were silently exchanging songs, talking over the phone or sending that postcard.

I won't spoil the book for you, just beg you to go pick up this book and read it. You will love it. There is just no reason not to. 

Oh! And if you are wondering how is the picture in this post related to Eleanor & Park, I decorated my room with these birds and these hearts and these lights and that music after I finished reading this book. Read the book and you will know why!

“He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them. Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. And Eleanor disintegrated.” - Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park