Omaha author defies stereotypes in Nebraska-set novel

I came across author Rainbow Rowell after my sister recommended me to her.

I read her novel “Fangirl” and fell in love with it, but quickly got bored with it. My sister, on another hand, loved it.

So when it came time to read her book “Eleanor and Park,” I wasn’t really excited because my sister didn’t like it. But I decided not to listen to her and just read it – and I was completely floored at the beautiful writing and characters.

The book is one of the most perfect pieces of literature I have ever read. The way Rowell writes is done in such a natural and flawless way, which I envy as an aspiring writer myself.

“Eleanor and Park” is set during the year of 1986 in Omaha, Neb. The main characters are Eleanor Douglas, who is a redhead with body image issues, and Park, who is a half-Korean, half-white, and seems to always have an issue with relating to his race and his height.

They come together through their adversities, and they become one of the best couples I have ever read about.

I love the way that Rowell includes realistic people in this novel. She includes a minority and a girl who has a bigger body.

Typically, a person of bigger body proportions is rarely the main character, or especially someone’s love interest.

Rowell completely tears down the notion that bigger people are ugly, or unlovable, by including Eleanor in the story.

Park always talks about how much he loves her and how beautiful she is, and that, to me, is wonderful because it’s not usually a common topic in stories.

The only time a bigger person is in a story nowadays, it seems, is when they lose a tremendous amount of weight and then they find love.

Body acceptance is very prominent in the story, and though it is the biggest concern of Eleanor, Park finds it one of the things he really loves about her.

Park, on the other hand, is a biracial male. His mother is from Korea and his dad is white, and the two cultures intertwine and he sometimes feels stuck trying to relate to both.

He’s in the teenage stage where he’s trying to figure out who he is and who he likes, and is sometimes unable to do so because of his ethnicity.

The characters definitely related to me in both with body acceptance and biracial acceptance – both with their internal problems and their physical experiences and learning to find themselves.

“Eleanor and Park” teaches about more realistic problems that any reader can correlate to. It’s a beautiful story that will leave anyone smiling all the way through.