Eleanor and Park was written by Rainbow Rowell in 2013 and was published by St. Martin’s Press. It is Rainbow Rowell’s second book and her first for young adults, and received significant critical acclaim upon its publication- it received a Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2013, a Georgia Peach Book Award in 2014, a Pennsylvania Young Readers’ Choice Award for Young Adults in 2013, and was nominated for the Michael L. Printz Award in 2013, among other awards.
The novel follows two sixteen-year-olds living in the 1980s - Eleanor, a social outcast who wears eccentric clothes and comes from an abusive and impoverished home life, and Park, a quiet boy who falls completely in love with her. Eleanor and Park deals heavily with the topics of love and relationships, family, abuse, poverty, bullying and racial backgrounds. It is a distinct coming-of-age novel that realistically depicts the issues faced by teenagers, and the events that shape their young adult lives.
In 2014 the novel was optioned for film; DreamWorks purchased the film rights, and Carla Hacken and Matt Kennedy have been hired as producer and executive produce respectively. Rowell plans to write the screenplay herself.
