Young Adult Literature Analysis

   As a component for my adolescent development class, my PLC group and I have to pick three young adult books to read throughout the semester. Our first book that we picked is, "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell. We have not completed the book yet, but through my reading of this book, I have found a lot of connections to my textbook for the class, "The Adolescent Development, Relationships and Culture" by Kim Gale Dolgin. 

   This book is written in the viewpoints of both Eleanor and Park and it explores their home lives, their relationship together and their relationships with their peers. From what I have read and gathered so far, this book focuses a lot on relationships, both romantic and friendships, bullying, abuse and problems that may arise in the homes of adolescents. 

   The textbook we are reading for class directly talks about how these scenarios can effect teenagers and their viewpoint on the world. One point mentioned in the textbook that really jumped out at me is when it mentioned how adolescents can be very concerned about what they wear and how they appear to their peers. In this book, Eleanor has expressed that she was nervous because she has had to repeat her outfits and that she is not the most stylish. Park has talked about her clothing as being different but it describes her style and he has gotten more used to it through out the book. This shows that teenagers really do take notice of what people are wearing and how they present themselves.

   The textbook also references violence in the house. As Eleanor has been slowly revealing what her home life entails, you can tell that their is violence between her stepfather, Richie, and her mother. From what I have read so far, there is a scene where Eleanor and her sibling can hear her stepfather abusing her mother. She then mentions in the next morning she can see bruises on her mother and that it is not the first time that she has witnessed that. My textbook had an interesting reference saying that children who can encounter a father figure abusing their mother figure in some way may are more susceptible to being victims of abuse when they grow up. I am interested to see if any of these tendencies may happen later in the novel. 

   I have yet to finish this novel but so far I find it to be very interesting and it is giving me a glimpse of what is going through high schoolers minds. This will be helpful for me as a teacher to be able to understand how they think and that we as teachers do not know what is going on in their house and so we can not judge a book by its cover.