I'll Give You the Sun-Nyp Library Binding – 27 Oct. 2015

Review originally posted on A Frolic Through Fiction (book blog): [...]“Hey Ashleigh, how does it feel to be in the 1% of the population that doesn’t absolutely adore this book?”Pretty odd actually. Because I was so convinced I’d love it.Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. But that’s my point. It’s good, it served its purpose, but unfortunately I fell for the “too much hype” demon that can take over our reader minds.(Yes, that’s a thing)I can definitely see why so many people would love this book. I mean, it does tackle so many issues and feelings. There’s the LGBTQ+ aspect to start with, the complicated family life, the loss of a loved one etc etc. And I did appreciate that a lot. Of course I did. Especially that last one. Every issue was handled in a realistic and respectful way, making them a normal part of everyday life. And if one of the issues isn’t a part of your everyday life? Well, you’d have no problem understanding what it feels like to go through with this book.“No one tells you how gone gone really is, or how long it lasts.”The good thing is, I know exactly what it was that put me off this book. That’s a good thing? Yes, because I can explain myself.For one, how the story is told really added a lot of confusion for me. Not in the I-don’t-understand-what’s-going-on sense, more in a why-in-the-world-is-this-happening sense. There’s such an abundance of over-active imagination in this writing. Doesn’t sound like a bad thing, I know . But when normal scenes are suddenly described as some sort of imagined fantasy world, I’d just think “wait what?". I mean, one minute the scene would be ordinary, the next, this is happening:“He floated into the air high above the sleeping forest, his green hat spinning a few feet above his head. In his hand was the open suitcase and out of it spilled a whole sky of stars.”But oh wait no, they just imagined it. My bad. And when each character is calling themselves crazy every so often, I actually started to wonder whether this book is about some sort of mental illness or whether it’s just because both characters are artists and are constantly imagining paintings etc. Apparently it’s not mental illness, it’s a lot of imagination. But the fact that I wasn’t sure until I looked through the genres really unnerved me, and made me feel a bit awful, because I feel like I should’ve known the difference.I know the imagination stuff is probably why most people love it. Maybe it’s just a lack of imagination on my behalf (though I highly doubt it, since I practically have my own fantasy world going on in my head). Either way, not for me.The other thing? So many bad events. Again, I know this is probably a good thing because so many issues are tackled and YES OF COURSE THAT’S GOOD. But I think it just overwhelmed me a little bit because both characters focused on the bad things so much, so the entire book just seemed like a bit of a grey cloud.But like I said, I DID ENJOY THIS BOOK. I know I just went on a not-so-good ramble. But I just feel like I needed to explain it.One thing that always interested me was the difference in formatting every so often. I seem to have a thing for interesting formats, so the paint splatters, painting titles and superstitious notes embedded all the way through were intriguing to me. They also added the personality of each character to the pages, depending who’s point of view you’re reading from.The change in perspectives also made the story more mysterious. With Noah writing from the age of 13/14, and Jude from the age of 16, the mystery of what happened between them really kept the pages turning. I wanted the story to be pieced together, I needed to know what happened to cause everything to break so much.And wow, do I get it. This is such a complicated family story, full of betrayal and lies, love and loss, anger and forgiveness. Nothing failed to shock me. Somehow I never found myself thinking something else was going to happen, so then it’d hit me full force and I had no choice but to continue on to see what happens. I especially didn’t expect all the characters to connect up as they did.I just wish this book hadn’t been hyped up to me quite as much as it had been. Yes, I enjoyed it. I don’t regret reading it. I’m giving it a good rating. I just don’t think it was as phenomenally groundbreaking as everyone else seems to think, unfortunately.

So I read Jandy Nelson's debut novel 'The Sky is Everywhere' and I was thrilled to see that she had another novel out, so I bought the hardback version right away.Overall, I enjoyed the book. The language is very interesting and unique- Jandy Nelson has a very distinctive turn of phrase which makes her novels so different from a lot of young adult fiction. It's very refreshing to see that her characters are all suitably flawed and are given both sympathetic and unsympathetic moments. A lot of novels tend to side with their protagonists over every matter, while Nelson is able to paint their actions as flawed while giving them a believable reason to behave in the way they do. Overall, Jude's chapters were easier to read for me than Noah's were, I found Noah to be quite selfish and whiny at times. Jude was very reminiscent of Nelson's previous protagonist from 'The Sky is Everywhere', Lennie, but she brings a certain charm and tragedy to the story that makes you become very invested in her story. Like the novel before it, love is the key theme of the book, but it doesn't just focus on the romantic love of teenage characters, which I was pleased to see.I have to say that initially the way Nelson was handling Oscar, a supporting character, became quite annoying. After repeated uses of 'The English guy' and 'English accent', I was getting increasingly irritated at how the character's only trait seemed to be 'being English'. (Not to mention, 'English accent' is an extremely broad term- it's like saying 'American accent'.) Once he was fleshed out a little more (and stopped saying 'bloody' quite so much), he actually became one of my favourite characters in the entire novel. Guillermo was also a fantastic character, even though his accent came out more Russian than Spanish, but IWhile I felt like the ending to 'Sky' was rather anticlimactic, this ending felt a little contrived, each solution was wrapped up very neatly in a manner that felt slightly artificial. It didn't really detract terribly from the overall effect of the novel, however. I'm glad that I bought the book, although I was slightly surprised to note that it didn't have poems between chapters like 'Sky' did, which was why I bought it in hardback. Still, another highly enjoyable instalment from Jandy Nelson.

Before I start, I should fess up that I am a fifty something reader, not a teen which is the target audience. That said, I loved it. Jandy's writing style is unique, the Americanisms gave the narrative a ring of realism (but then I'm from Cambridge, UK so, again, might not be best placed to comment on that) and the plot line was, for the most part, plausible. The different points of view worked well - just as you thought one twin's judgement and stance was right, you'd hear things from a difference angle forcing you to see both sides. Humorous and sad in equal measures, this is a great teenage romp - hormones, love and lust, confusion and conformity - set against a backdrop of a changing family dynamic. A quirky bubble of a book - it possibly went on a few pages more than it needed to but other than that super duper!

It took me a while to get into this book, so much so that I read the first few chapters and then left it for a month. But for some reason, when I picked it up again I couldn't put it down! The characters and their lives turn out to be quite complex and the two story threads of the two twins merge together at the end in a way that I didn't see coming, so it is very clever! I found myself wanting more of Noah and Brian's story from when they were older rather than just them at 13 so sometimes the perspective was annoying. However, on the whole, a very enjoyable and different YA book touching on themes of divorce, virginity, death, siblings, parents, and sexuality.