Book Clubbing

I love our book group so so much and when I add two 'so's", it's a big deal.

 

We get together and discuss the book for about half an hour and then just laugh and tell stories and thoroughly enjoy one another's company. It's wonderful and really does make me happy.

 

This night we missed a lot of our people but the ones that came were dressed in either grey or plaid...except Amber.

 And now for the book review.

We read Elenor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

 

Set over the course of a high school year in 1986, this is the story of two unexpected people that fall in love under the strangest circumstances and although they are smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, they are desperate enough to try. Their relationship is truly tested by the influences of everyone around them. Anyone who has made it through high school will be able to relate on a lesser or grater level with these extraordinary characters.

 

Out of 5 stars I gave this 4 stars. Here's why.

 

The things that I love about this book are that it is set in the 1980's which I love. They reference their 80's life style from their clothing, music, icons and their everyday lifestyle. I loved being able to think of the songs they were talking about almost as if it were a soundtrack playing in my head as I read.

 

I thought the author portrayed what it was really like to fall in love for the first time. The giddiness and obsession that you feel for each other and how ridiculous you must look to everyone else. I totally got that and loved it. It certainly threw me back to 1997 when I experienced my first kiss/crush with the one and only Jason Moses.

 

I may be twisted here, but I also liked that this book wasn't all happy. I get that crap happens in peoples lives and maybe the part that draws me to these types of book is that it puts my life into perspective and makes me realize that my crap isn't half as bad as other people's crap. {yes I do realize that this a fictitious book, but I do know that lifestyles like these are real}

 

Things I didn't like about this book

 

I had the hardest time picturing the main character, Elenor. And maybe that's because I know of a student that I worked with and she kept popping up in my mind and I couldn't shake that image. Ugh. After talking with other fellow book clubbers, I realized that I wasn't the only one with this exact thought.

 

Okay so I get that {some} high school kids swear a lot, but I found that it was a bit excessive in the beginning of this book. Normally I don't mind, but when this is classified under a Young Adult read, I would expect it to not drop so may F bombs.  Again, after working in a high school for 4 years, I do realize that {some} high school kids do use that sort of language but I would expect more creativity especially when a large percentage of your readers may be young adults.

 

The ending seemed a bit rushed in my opinion and I wanted more closure. I wont spoil anything, however, I wanted more out of the characters.

 

We heard that this book was going to made into a movie so I'll see how that goes. I will be excited to see how they bring this to the big screen and maybe and finally my image of Elenor will be explained.

 

Next months book is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. This is a fat book and a book that was suggested to us by one of our smart readers.

And just for the record I'm not a smart reader. I prefer easy, mindless, un-biographical  books.