What is Eleanor & Park?

Rainbow Rowell’s book Eleanor and Park is a cute story of teen romance. The book focuses on the two main characters Eleanor and Park. Eleanor is a new student at Park’s high school. From the beginning, readers experience everything Eleanor feels going into her new school and falling in love with Park. Throughout Eleanor’s narration in the book, the audience can immediately infer that Eleanor exists as a shy, timid, and unconfident young girl. She is constantly bashing on herself and compares herself to others. Eleanor describes her background to the audience, detailing the kind of clothes she wears, the color of her hair, her family, her home life, and she especially focuses on her size.

A Young Female Teen Going Through Negative Body Image

Because Eleanor continuously discusses her appearance, it is easy to comprehend that Eleanor is always aware of her appearance. It is known from the start that Eleanor’s style is not the most popular and according to Paker, makes her stick out of the crowd. Because of her fashion, Eleanor is immediately outcasted at her new school. By this, Eleanor becomes even more self-conscious about her appearance. Reading this, I am sure many young high school girls can relate to Eleanor’s emotion or those older reading the book can probably look back at high school and remember those moments. It is completely normal for young girls to feel insecure about their style and visuals and it is honestly depressing. Just because someone expresses themselves differently than what society deems trendy or in-style is quite sad. We can only assume that this is the same type of pressure Eleanor felt. She was not able to afford clothes as her home life consisted of an abuses stepfather, her obedient mother, and several siblings. Eleanor worked with what she had and there is no shame in that. I find it upsetting that self-conscious and insecure emotion is a normal obstacle for women.

Eleanor’s negative body image seems to come from the same source that other females get theirs from, other women. From various moments of the story, we see that Eleanor encounters numerous women who she describes as beautiful and Goddess like. First, we hear about Eleanor’s mother who Eleanor has looked up to since she was a little girl. Eleanor describes her mom’s beauty and states her mom has the beauty of royalty: “When Eleanor was a little girl, she’d thought her mom looked like a queen, like the star of some fairy tale” (4.24). Eleanor also encounters Park’s mother, Mindy. Eleanor describes Mindy as doll-like and admires her a lot. Because of Eleanor is surrounded by women she finds beautiful, she constantly compares her looks to theirs, making her belittle her personal beauty.

Is Eleanor really as “big” as She Claims?

Many readers speculate whether Eleanor is as terrible looking and big as she describes herself. There are many theories that the way Eleanor describes herself may just be negative body image on herself. A negative body image can cause an individual to hate their appearance even when they may be perfectly in shape or have the “ideal” visual. I believe that Eleanor felt this way, that she was describing herself in a negative light when she was perfectly fine. I stand by this theory due to the many moments in the book that reveal her true image. For one, when Eleanor first meets Park’s father, Jamie, he tells Park that Eleanor is “not as big as he thought she would be.” This shows that Eleanor is not “big” as she explains herself to the readers. Park also constantly describes Eleanor as a beautiful girl who ” never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something” (27.60). The only person throughout the whole book who describes herself as “big” is Eleanor. Eleanor’s home life may also hint that she is not as big as she describes. Eleanor lives in a family full of young children as she has several siblings. They are not the most wealthy family, so there living condition is difficult, including the amount of food they get. With these details, one would say it would be hard for Eleanor to gain weight to be “big” like she claims to be.

Eleanor’s emotion resonated with me a lot when I first read this book. I was also a new student in my sophomore year of high school and I felt that it was important for me to look my best. I did not believe my fashion was weird; however, I moved from California to Georgia the fashion between the two states were completely different. I felt like an outcasted even though I knew no one knew who I was. I felt all eyes staring at me even though no one really cared. It is a type of insecurity that all women go through as society expects us to look nice 24/7.

I believe Rowell did an amazing job of showing what a negative body image can do to a woman, especially someone like Eleanor who is still young and surrounded by high schoolers. Whether or not Eleanor is “big” or not, she still illuminates the type of thoughts that go through her mind through one day. She is consistently thinking of her image and others around her. Eleanor exemplifies a teenaged girl who is scared because of the pressure society puts on women with their expectations. I find this book to be an interesting way to read about body image as you can read it through the perspective of a young girl placed in a new environment and experiencing her first relationship.

Rowell, Rainbow., Rebecca Lowman, Sunil Malhotra, and OverDrive Inc. Eleanor & Park. Unabridged. New York: Listening Library, 2013.