Read This: Eleanor and Park

Have you read this book yet? It's certainly not a new release, it came out in 2013 and Dreamworks has already bought the rights to make it into a movie with the author, Rainbow Rowell, as the screenwriter. I'm not really into the young adult genre. I didn't looooove the Hunger Games and have never read the Divergent series. But this one is different. It takes place in 1980's Omaha and features two high school students who fall in love on the school bus. Eleanor is a chubby redhead from a very dysfunctional, low income, domestic abuse-riddled family who is the new kid at school. She sits with Park, a half-Korean loner who loves comics and punk music and is at odds with his machismo, tough-guy father, on the bus. Slowly they bond over comic books and music and eventually fall in love. It's the sweetest book. Rowell makes you feel like you are 16 again and you are falling in love again for the first time with her language and descriptions and avoidance of cliches. I devoured this book and mourned its ending. You should too!