Bookworming: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

From my Instagram a month ago: Starting the week with Eleanor & Park and green mint tea

It's about time I got books on here, so I decided to start with Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. I learned that John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars, reviewed it, so I picked it up at FullyBooked. This isn't going to be a full-on review though because it's obvious that I love it -- it's on this site's masthead and I've been tweeting and instagram-ing about it after all. I even posted about it on Tumblr and it got so many likes and reblogs. Crazy. Since I don't like reviews with spoilers, here's a brief, kind of stream of consciousness, casual explanation of why I adore it so much. 

Eleanor & Park is about a chubby girl with big hair and weird clothes named Eleanor, and a music-loving, geeky, half-Korean guy who knows martial arts named Park. They're teenagers in high school and they meet. Then life happens. Eleanor has problems and Park has problems, but in the middle of it all was their connection. 

The story is set in 1986, so you get a good feel of the time, mixed tapes and all. I started the book in the morning and didn't stop for a few hours until I finished it. It was that good. It's super cool young adult stuff -- there are comic books and great records and makeovers and food. It also deals with super serious adult stuff, with heavy real world issues. 

What makes it an amazing love story is that it's realistic and bittersweet. It reminded me of the feeling of the first blush of young love, when nothing else mattered except the other person, and the trials that come with it. It also has one of the best descriptions ever written (in my opinion) of holding hands and being in love.

Eleanor & Park made me swoon (Pinoy friends: so much kilig!), but it also made me cry. It's an absolute gorgeous, dreamy, exquisite jewel of a book.

Edit: Apologies for this total fangirl moment, but Rainbow Rowell thanked me for my review and told me my blog was so cute on Twitter!