“Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.”
― Jandy Nelson, I’ll Give You the Sun
Book Title: I’ll Give You the Sun
Author: Jandy Nelson
Publication Date: 2014
Genres: YA Fiction, Realistic Fiction
Goodreads Rating: 4.07 Stars
My Rating: 5 Stars!
Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah’s story to tell. The later years are Jude’s. What the twins don’t realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.
This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.
1. “I can unzip the air and disappear inside it…” Holy cow. The words in this book. But really. Check down there and see just how many quotes I chose. Go on. Read them. They are so pretty. And that is really, really what I loved most about the book. The plot? So-so. The characters? They’re cool. The words? Amaze-balls. But not in a pretentious “I’m so pretty and fluffy and pointless” way but in a “Metaphors and sarcasm expand the plot and make you think” way. And that line in bold right there? I gasped out loud when I read it. Because it’s so. damn. pretty.
2. Ok, so the plot is pretty good. Have you ever seen Crazy, Stupid, Love with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone and Steve Carrell? (If your answer is no, go watch it, then proceed.) The plot shifts and twists and all of a sudden, the characters collide in a way that you never expected. This book? Same thing. The characters are on point, and it has the added bonus of have multiple points of view, some awesome art references, and main characters that are slightly unhinged in a really cool and funny sorta ways (especially considering they are teenagers).
3. Thank you, Jandy Nelson. For an AMAZING realistic YA fiction book. Seriously. I haven’t read a good realistic YA fiction book in a while. This novel is added to the top of my list with TFiOS, 13 Reasons Why, and Perks of Being a Wallflower. That’s how good it is (and how pretty the words are).
Read this book.
“Meeting your soul mate is like walking into a house you’ve been in before – you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers: You could find your way around in the dark if you had to.”
“’I love you,’ I say to him, only it comes out, ‘Hey.’
‘So damn much,’ he says back, only it comes out, ‘Dude.’
He still won’t meet my eyes.”
“People die, I think, but your relationship with them doesn’t. It continues and is ever-changing.”
“This is what I want: I want to grab my brother’s hand and run back through time, losing years like coats falling from our shoulders.”
“It’s never occurred to me that the stars are still up there shining even in the daytime when we can’t see them.”
“Per your request and his, this is how it’s going to be from now on. When I want to ask you to abandoned buildings or kiss those lips of yours or stare into your otherworldly eyes or imagine what you look like under all those baggy drab clothes you’re always hiding in or ravish you on some grimy floor like I’m desperate to this very minute, I’ll just bugger off on my Hippity Hop. Deal?”
“Our eyes meet and hold, and the world starts to fall away, time does, years rolling up like rugs, until everything that’s happened unhappens, and for a moment, it’s us again, more one than two.”
“And you used to make art and like boys and talk to horses and pull the moon through the window for my birthday present.”
“Unlike most everyone else on earth, from the very first cells of us, we were together, we came here together. This is why no one hardly notices that Jude does most of the talking for both of us, why we can only play piano with all four of our hands on the keyboard and not at all alone, why we can never do Rochambeau because not once in thirteen years have we chosen differently. It’s always: two rocks, two papers, two scissors. When I don’t draw us like this, I draw us as half-people.”
“And I know [other] faces aren’t this colorful, this vivid, this lived-in, this superbly off-site, this brimming with dark unpredictable music. NOT THAT I EFFING NOTICE… For the record, breathing is overrated.”
“Her face slides off her face – no one can keep their faces on today – and the one underneath is desperate.”
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