Eleanor & Park (and Frogs)

I did not watch it again, but last weekend's Svengoolie is a fun 1970s horror film about and titled Frogs. Ray Milland made some fun genre films, including playing the day in Love Story. He had a long career, first popping up in classic black and white films, lasting in the 1980s. A young Sam Elliott is the hero. 

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Love Story is one of the favorites of the teen girl is Eleanor & Park, a first love young adult novel that takes place (for some reason) in the mid-1980s. Maybe, the book is somehow based on the author's own reminisces,  but otherwise, there is not too much of a 1980s vibe.  The book was written in the 2010s, so I guess it helps explain to people the lack of computers, and the concept of cassette tape Walkmen. 

[The author vaguely looks like Eleanor and lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where the book takes place.]  

 I found out about this book when I read over for a second time the book by Bromleigh McCleneghan that discussed sexuality from a liberal Christian viewpoint.  Her book was written a few years after that one and she really thought it was a beautiful love story.  Looking for a Youtube video, it looks like some people found it had issues.  I did like it, including Bromleigh's view that it was an honest accounting of the feelings involved.

(The link to the author provides some criticisms to that book. I did not re-read the whole thing.  I don't know if same sex couples are as absent as suggested in the review.  I do recall the author's negative view of porn, which is overblown if applied in an absent sense. Porn is basically material meant -- no ifs or butts -- to cause a sexual reaction.  That is not inherently wrong though like many romance novels there are a lot of issues.)

The couple is not balanced. The girl is a "big" white girl with an abusive family situation, not limited to the fact her mother (of five, ranged 2-16) is with an abusive man. They are poor (just having a new toothbrush is a big deal in her eyes) and have no nearby support. The biological father is mostly absent, and comes off as an asshole, if better than the one they are stuck with now.  This is far from unbelievable as a whole. 

The boy is a mixed race (father white, mother Korean) teen who has some issues with determining his gender comfort level (he starts to wear eye makeup mid-book).  His father is a macho sort that does not really care for this sort of thing, but deep down is not abusive and does care for him. His parents' marriage is happy.  They live a happy middle class sort of life, right next door to the father's parents. 

The book largely takes place on the bus, where they fall in love sitting next to each other, originally because basically new comer Eleanor had no other place to sit.  We get a taste of school life (she eventually gets two supportive black friends after a bullying incident in gym class; but even the truly horrible person is her stepfather) and life in each of their homes. In the end, she moves far away with a relative, the home situation too dangerous.  It is unclear what happened to the rest of her family though the implication is that they moved out too, if not with her.  

The book starts with a now adult Park not totally over Eleanor, still thinking about her at times. The book ends with a brief section after she goes to live with her uncle and aunt.  The general implication is that she does not feel able to merely write to him, thinking it best to make a hard break.  He resists that for a time. The book ends with him getting a postcard from her with three words.  I think "I love you" is the idea.

As BM notes, there is a good approach of seeing things in each of the couple's vantage points.  We also through them, get some sense of the other characters, if imperfectly.  The love story of Park's parents, for instance, sounds rather interesting.  (We get Eleanor's view on how her mother and stepfather met, but not a few accounting of the other couple.)  The book, more than many, gives us a sense of each character's emotional state of mind.  And, how they read each other's feeling.  

Before or around COVID, the Wikipedia page for the book notes that a film was planned.  But, it is unclear from first glance about the state of things at this point.  The author also wrote other books.  As to why people felt the book was problematic, I did not deep dive it.  I guess you can find fault with it.  

I think it is pretty good.