Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (Book Summary and Review) - Minute Book Report скачать в хорошем качестве

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (Book Summary and Review) - Minute Book Report

This is a quick book summary and analysis of Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. Facebook Page -   / 1148331925195691   This is a story about a boy named Park and a girl named Eleanor who go to school in Omaha, Nebraska. Eleanor lives with her mother, step-father, and siblings, but was kicked out of the house for about a year by her step-father. Her family life isn’t too great, as her father abuses her mother and verbally abuses her. Since she is the new girl, Eleanor has no place to sit on the bus, but Park eventually lets her sit next to him. As weeks go by, Park and Eleanor develop a friendship based on their love of music and comics. They eventually talk to each other every day on the bus to and from school. One day, they start holding hands and their feelings for each other blossom into a romance. Their relationship develops from hand-holding to kissing, but several conflicts come up along the way, including Eleanor discovering perverted messages in her schoolbooks and Park bringing up a past relationship with a popular girl. During the holiday break, Eleanor spends more time with Park and his family, nearly going to his house every day. Park’s mother even offers to give her a free makeover, although Eleanor doesn’t really like it. Their relationship begins to get more physical, but Eleanor’s step-father discovers her relationship with Park and is upset. Eleanor also figures out that her step-father has been the one writing those perverted messages in her books. Eleanor decides to run away and Park takes her to her uncle’s house in Minnesota. They say good bye, but Park promises to write letters. However, Eleanor decides not to read them or write back. In the end, life goes on for both Eleanor and Park, but she finally writes back after over a year of silence. As always, a lot can be said about this story, but what draws my interest and attention is the idea that while Asian women are sometimes portrayed in the media as desirable, we don’t really see a lot, if any, Asian men as objects of desire. This idea is introduced when Park struggles with his masculinity in the story as he experiments with eyeliner. He feels undesirable, in a way, because he identifies himself as Asian and he sees a lack of Asian men in the media as desirable. I was never aware of this until graduate school in college when I heard a professor talk about how Asian men are often feminized in Western culture as weak or submissive. And while there have been Asian men who have been action heroes, like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, they’re more viewed as weapons or comic relief, not necessarily as romantic love interests. The identity of Asian men in our culture is not a big theme in this story, yet the author was aware of the issue enough to bring it up. It’s one of the issues that Park continues to struggle with, even as he pursues Eleanor. And that’s what makes this story exciting. There are two imperfect people trying to make a relationship work. Both are worried about perception and why the other person would want to be with them. Eleanor for her size and lack of femininity; Park for his low self-esteem.