The sky is everywhere

What's great about this book is the voice of Lennie, the main character. When I first started reading this, I was a little off-put by Lennie's voice – it's a unique one and not entirely believable at the jump. Little by little, though, details are revealed about Lennie that begin to explain her strong voice and diction. I love that Lennie is a teenager and experiencing/expressing grief and love in these complicated and super adult(-seeming) ways. This book is full of beautifully written passages that completely swept me away into Lennie's world.

This is not even a coherent review so don't expect it to be. It's just a spilling of my guts, I apologize. Please read this book. I can't even say how happy I am that I finally purchased a copy of this book. I've seen it around the YA community and just assumed it would be another contemporary YA book, nothing wrong with that. But no, this book is beautiful, absolutely incredible. Not only is the prose-like writing style enchanting, the story itself is seriously breathtaking. I want to lay down on the fluffiest comforter in a field and cry and laugh and clutch this book to my chest. I want to own every copy ever printed and simultaneously I want to give a copy to everyone I see and urge them to read it ASAP. I cried on and off through Part 1 and just when I thought it couldn't get better, here comes Part 2. Oh. The emotions in Part 2. I sobbed constantly until the end, and even after that. My glasses fogged up and I couldn't see from crying so hard. There were multiple time I had to lay the book down and just cry for a few minutes until I could pull myself together enough to continue without ripping my own heart out. Overwhelming grief and love felt through words typed on paper. ???? I have no real words right now. I already want to read it again. And again and again, like Lennie did with Wuthering Heights.

In summation, if you haven't, read this book please.

Grief is a houseWhere the chairsHave forgotten how to hold usThe mirrors how to reflect usThe walls how to contain usGrief is a house that disappearsEach time someone knocks at the doorOr rings the bellA house that blows into the airAt the slightest gustThat buries itself deep in the groundWhile everyone is sleepingGrief is a house where no one can protect youWhere the younger sisterWill grow older than the older oneWhere the doorsNo longer let you inOr out.

The Sky is Everywhere didn't take off for me fully until past the half-way point. When Lennie was specifically dealing with or speaking or writing about her grief over the loss of her sister, the story was great, but I found myself less into the love triangle angle, or at least one participant in the triangle. Lennie was still making her decisions there based on her sorrow, but I found myself not having an interest in seeing her make the particular mistake she did. As soon as the story narrowed down to one love interest and her interactions with her family, I stopped feeling like some pages were a slog. Jandy Nelson is a really terrific writer, the prose almost poetry, and the poetry something sublime. Adored [b:I'll Give You the Sun 20820994 I'll Give You the Sun Jandy Nelson https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1496659336s/20820994.jpg 11409817], and I found myself very happy I'd read this by the end. Fave quotes: “...all of a sudden the breath is kicked out of me and I???m shoved onto the cold hard concrete floor of my life now, because I remember I can???t run home after school and tell Bails about a new boy in band. My sister dies over and over again, all day long.”I've felt that, haven't you? The moment when you remember the conversation with this person is over. That you can't hear their comments or advice ... or laughter. “I start to think about all the things I haven???t said since Bailey died, all the words stowed deep in my heart, in our orange bedroom, all the words in the whole world that aren???t said after someone dies because they are too sad, too enraged, too devastated, too guilty, to come out???all of them begin to course inside me like a lunatic river.”I've also been there. Words left unsaid because the only person I want to say them too is gone!

*4.5 STARS.

(Review originally posted here at Fictionally Inclined. For current reviews, check out my new blog: The Book Barbies)

I was randomly browsing the YA section of my library when I came across this book. The cover was different than the one I'd seen before, and I did not recognize the title. Although I'm not always crazy about the torn-between-two-boys storyline, it sounded good enough, so I picked it up with pretty much no expectations. Little did I know just how amazing this book was going to be!

I loved everything about this book. The writing was incredible. It was very flowy and lyrical with an almost stream of consciousness feel to it, yet it totally matched the voice of a 17-year-old girl. I loved the originality of the characters. They were all so unique, and everyone lent something to the story. No one was superfluous. There was not an abundance of unnecessary secondary characters. Just the right amount for the story.

This book gave me ALL THE FEELS. I giggled, I cried, I swooned. I was completely caught up on Lennie's predicament with the two boys. Her feelings and emotions and thoughts were so clearly conveyed that I felt like I was living inside her head. I was confused when she was confused. I never yelled at her internally for being an idiot, because I could see where she was coming from with everything. The boys were SO DIFFERENT - and I loved them both - but she was drawn to each for different reasons, too. (Also, this really is not a love triangle book, despite how it might sound.)

I tend to dislike random poetry thrown in between chapters, which has become a “thing” with YA in the recent years. Honestly, it's usually super lame. But there were lots of poems and random notes strewn throughout this book, and they were actually good. I felt like I got to know Lennie better through them. And the best part is that it made perfect sense with the story for them to be there.

Also, random point, but I love that Lennie was obsessed with Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights. Girl after my own heart. I have not read it twenty-three times, but I have read it four times. And this book made me feel like a re-read may need to be imminent because I miss it.

Basically, if I had to describe this book, it would just be a long string of adjectives because I am not capable of fully explaining the awesomeness. Heart-breaking. Addicting. Enthralling, beautiful, real. Knock-you-off-your-chair fantastic. While I was reading this book, I felt like it moved quickly and that I was flying through it. But in reality, it actually took me my average reading time, if not slightly more, because I kept re-reading little sections that were particularly beautiful. Reading this book was a great experience, and I will definitely be re-reading in the future. Loved it!

PHENOMENAL!!!!!

I seriously love Jandy Nelson's writing style, it's so beautiful and I don't understand how her books aren't more popular!

Personally, I did enjoy “I'll Give You The Sun” a bit more but then again thats probably because this was her debut and I also relate to Noah more than I care to admit.

Oof. What an irritating, uninspired book.

Three words about the writing: death by metaphor. More than once I would look up and go “...what are you trying to say with that metaphor.” Some of the metaphors flat-out made no sense to me.

The characters were nauseatingly whimsical at times and way too mature to be believable. They seem to suffer from John Green-itis, meaning they read books that teenagers don't read (the main character Lennie mentions Wuthering Heights ad nauseum), and they speak like people twice their age. It was hard to connect to any of them, except Bailey (EXCEPT SHE'S DEAD SO SHE ISN'T IN THE NOVEL VERY MUCH). I was pretty much choking on the irritating whimsy of each character. It's easier to connect to characters that use dialogue that one could expect to hear in the real world. Not so with this book.

I also found the book needlessly melodramatic. I assumed that the plot would rely mainly on the grief process experienced by the main character and her loved ones. But nope. Love triangle. IT'S A LOVE TRIANGLE BOOK. She is wooed almost immediately by her dead sister's boyfriend Toby (nice...) and is simultaneously wooed by the new French guy at school. So her grief and frenzied feelings about her sister's sudden death get put on the back burner in favor of this uninteresting cliche. We already have a plethora of books to choose from that feature love triangles, and they do it a lot better than this one. Why not let this be a book about grief and growing up?

Overall I was disappointed with The Sky Is Everywhere. I would recommend it to those who enjoy John Green's work, which generally does not work for me.

Honestly, being the shallow human being that I am, I picked up this book mainly because the cover is pretty. I went into this expecting a light read to take a break from all the fantasy books, but I was pleasantly surprised.

There's just something visceral about this book. It's filled with emotions so raw that it really hits me in the heart, even though I'm not particularly fond of Lennie nor do I find her easy to relate to. She's young, she doesn't know how to deal with her sister's death, and she makes a lot of stupid decisions, but I think that's what makes her real. Her romance with Joe takes off super fast, but it's still adorable... though I didn't really like how he brought Rachel into the messy drama.

While I think it's dumb for Lennie to get involved with her dead sister's boyfriend even though she's falling madly in love with someone else, I kind of understand why they ended up like that. I know how it feels to lose someone and have no one else who truly understand the loss. It's complicated, so while what Lennie did with Toby was definitely not right, I can't bring myself to hate her for it.

Well... either that, or I just like trainwrecks and messy human drama. Or both. Probably both.

Anyway, I really liked this book. The writing style is different, but beautiful. Not to mention the poems. Some of Lennie's poems are weird, some are awkward, but some are also touching and beautifully written. The handwritten poems alone make the physical book worth getting even though I'm running out of space.