"The Sky is Everywhere": Fall in Love With Jandy Nelson's Ability to Capture First Love

"Years ago, I crashed in Gram's garden and Big asked me what I was doing.  I told him I was looking up at the sky.  He said, 'That's a misconception, Lennie, the sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet." 

I love when I finish a book and I can't stop smiling.

Or thinking about it.

Or  I'm awestruck of the author who created such lovely sentences and such lovely characters who are passionate, intricate, and people who I'd like to know.

I feel lucky that I've now read both of Jandy Nelson's YA books.  I'll Give You The Sun was a miracle, and now that I've read The Sky is Everywhere, I realize that Jandy Nelson is even more gifted and amazing than I thought.

Although I read "The Sky is Everywhere" in huge helpings and raced to the end, I didn't really want it to end because that means that Lennie with her beautiful hair and Joe Fontaine with his beautiful eyelashes would no longer be a big part of my day.  I wouldn't get the chance to feel their love story unfold.

The novel tells the story of 17 year old Lennie Walker whose sister, Bailey, died suddenly and Lennie who always allowed her sister to overshadow her suddenly realizes she needs to be her own person and doesn't really know who she is.  She starts to lust after boys, and begins to really question why her mother hasn't contacted her in 16 years, and she alienates the people who matter to her most.

And then she meets the new boy in band, Joe Fontaine, who just happens to be a music prodigy, highly romantic, and from Paris.

SCORE.

Even more, he really seems to get her, he helps her to tap into her musical genius, and he's okay with the fact that her family is kind of crazy.

BUT . . . Lennie has a slight issue.  Her sister's boyfriend, Toby keeps showing up to find comfort from his loss.  His grief over Bailey's death equals her own and when they get together it's like they are trying to piece Bailey back together by their electric grief. Although Lennie knows that it's wrong to kiss Toby and put her hands all over him, something about his presence comforts her.  He's the only one who understands how much she misses her sister and the only one who understands how hard it is to live in a world without Bailey.

From the poems that Lennie leaves pretty much everywhere she goes to write her story into the air, to Gram's seductive roses, to Big's affinity to marry every woman in town, to Joe Fontaine's beautiful older brothers, to the way Lennie has read Wuthering Heights 23 times, Jandy Nelson created quirky but believable characters.  These are the kinds of people we wish we could be - talented, gorgeously creative, beautiful, deeply expressive, unapologetically passionate,  but most of all they are believable.

I believed the love story between Joe and Lennie.

I believed the shared grief between Lennie and Toby.

I believed Gram's eccentricities and her obsession with painting green women.

Everything about this YA book works and it was lovely to read and be sucked into the storyline for a few days.  I only hope that Jandy Nelson hurries up and writes another magical creation soon.

I'm ready for more.

"I'll Give You the Sun": A Magical and Passionate YA Masterpiece

Love does as it undoes.  It goes after, with equal tenacity: joy and heartbreak. 

There's something about looking at a beautiful painting or sculpture and noticing the fine details, the artistry, the imagination and the mystery that surrounds it.  Sometimes you see something so beautiful that you want to cry, or possess it, or to be the one who created it.  Jandy Nelson's "I'll Give You the Sun" is equal parts beautiful and heartbreaking. This YA coming-of-age novel shows how art transforms the characters and is itself a work of art.

It's been awhile since I've been so moved by a YA novel.  Nelson's gift is her lyrical writing which includes elements of magic and supernatural, but also gives heavy doses of reality.  She also nails what blossoming love feels like and looks like in two very smart protagonists.  The narrators in the alternating (and long but lovable) chapters are Jude and Noah, twins who are so close that they almost smother each other in their quest to curry favor from their artistic mother.  Each of them tries to forge their own paths, but life rarely plays fair.  After tragedy strikes their family and truths, secrets and lies mount, they compete with each other in dangerous ways that drive them apart.

I loved every second of reading this book because of the intricacy of the story line - how the characters intersect and bisect each other's lives. The idea of twins who can sense each other's pain hurting each other purposely, but ending up only hurting themselves was captivating as was the whimsy of the grandmother's character and the unforgiving mother who also needed to forgive herself.

On top of the brilliance of Noah and Jude and their original, artistic voices that realize things about love and life that most people never can quite get, the supporting characters all add to rather than detract from the story.  Noah's "split-apart," Brian and his denial of his sexual orientation hurts to read.  He and Noah are so in love, but it's not okay to be who they are in a world of "surftards" and dads who just want their sons to be normal.  And Jude's transformation from bad ass to recluse to emerging bad ass and truth sayer was not just believable but touching.  She falls for her destiny and doesn't realize it just like she doesn't realize her crazy haired, stone sculptor, mentor is actually more closely tied to her life.

All artistic elements of this book work harmoniously to create a gorgeous inner and outer work of art YA novel that is so original and fresh that it feels like a pop of summer sunshine to read, but the depth of it and the emotional charge that comes form reading it makes me want to meet Jandy Nelson and tell her I am in awe of her passion and talent as a writer.

Looking for a coming of age love story this summer? Read "I'll Give You the Sun" and prepare to be amazed.