"'Someone else, someone with a heart. Mr. Sheridan, what beats in your chest? Tell us, why has Romeo and Juliet survived four hundred years?'"... 'Because . . .' he said quietly, looking at his desk, 'because people want to remember what it's like to be young? And in love?'" 
 This is very much a YA book, and if you don't like YA you probably won't like it. There's lots of over-the-top emotion, syrupy romance and teenage angst, things that often annoy me in this genre but here just felt very authentic. It also felt like a book aimed at Gen-X'ers (like me) because Eleanor and Park were teenagers during the same time that I was a teenager. I got all the pop culture references (and there were quite a few of them sprinkled throughout -- they were well done) and I can't imagine that someone who's a teenager today would get most of them. Like the adult humor that goes into kid's cartoons, it's not integral to the story and will just go over your head if it's not meant for you, but if you get it it adds a layer of nostalgia. I don't pine for my youth or that time period-- I wouldn't go back to being a teenager if you paid me -- but it was still fun to see all the PoMo music references and remember things like Solid Gold, making mix tapes, and watching the Young Ones on Mtv. 
 (view spoiler)[And the ending... I didn't see it coming, so it got me. I'm solidly on the positive side of the fence, and if this is the only ending I ever get I'm fine with that. I really, really hope there's more coming, though. (hide spoiler)]