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lindseythelibrarian 's review for:
Eleanor & Park
by Rainbow Rowell
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I was going to give this book more stars, but I am on the fence regarding many arguments that this book is racist and has a lot of stereotypes. I see it. There is a short article recommend that sums up why this book is underresearched and therefore makes some really terrible choices in representing characters and identities.
In some cases, since the perspective is from either Eleanor or Park, I think some of their underdeveloped thought processes regarding how they see one another and their world was understandable, though still problematic, but arguing for a character to see something in the way that you see it doesn't really work for me as a valid argument.
However, I was swept up in the romance and was interested in Eleanor's as well as Park's trauma. At the end, this book felt a bit rushed like a little slap in the face.
Anyway, I hope to read more books by diverse authors/more researched books to avoid this problem in the future, though I still did enjoy this book as I was uneducated at the time of reading about the misrepresentations of the Asian Community.