Eleanor & Park by @rainbowrowell

Eleanor is the new girl in town, and she's never felt more alone. All mismatched clothes, mad red hair and chaotic home life; she couldn't stick out more if she tried. Then she takes the seat on the bus next to Park. Quiet, careful and, in Eleanor's eyes, impossibly cool, Park's worked out that flying under the radar is the best way to get by. Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mixed tapes, Eleanor and Park fall in love. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you're 16, and you have nothing and everything to lose. Set over the course of one school year in 1986, Eleanor and Park is funny, sad, shocking and true - an exquisite nostalgia trip for anyone who has never forgotten their first love.

*** [XTC was no good for drowning out the morons at the back of the bus] ***

(Orion, 12 April 212, ebook, 329 pages, bought from Amazon, Popsugar 2018 Reading Challenge, a book set in the decade you were born)

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Oh my God, I loved this book so much, it took my little heart and snapped it into pieces. Eleanor is an amazing character. I felt just like her in school, the weird girl who stuck out like a sore thumb no matter how she tried to be invisible. I loved Park as well. The relationship that develops between them, starting off as barely even friendship and turning into first love is sweet, beautifully written and heart-breaking at times. I love things develop between them with Park giving her comic books to read and neither of them really speaking to each other. It's not all sweet and mushy. Eleanor & Park takes dark tone towards the end as Eleanor discovers just why her step-father is so awful. Eleanor & Park is amazing. I cried and laughed a lot.