I'll Give You the Sun

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Published September 16, 2014

About the Book:

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell 

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.

My Thoughts:

Normally I kinda cringe when I see "for fans of" type recommendations that mention phenomenal authors such as John Green (and David Levithan and Rainbow Rowell are certainly amazing too).  That's a lot of pressure for a book to live up to, and often I am let down at least little.  That is so not the case with this one.  What an incredible book!  It's beautifully written, and Jude and Noah are written with such rich voices.  They both come across so clearly on the page that you feel as if you know them and you care about them so much when reading their story.  So many times I felt my heart breaking right along with them.  The writing here is a work of art really and so fitting seeing as both of the main characters are artists.  Also, being the mother of twins who don't get along so well made so much of the book hit close to home for me as well (and my girls are both artists too).  Though a YA novel, this easily stands up alongside many of the best works of literary fiction.  This is definitely one of those books I want to wave in the face of anyone who knocks YA to show them the high quality of what the YA genre has been producing in recent years.  I HIGHLY recommend this one!

Also, I will get to meet the author in a few weeks!!  Jandy Nelson is one of the authors who will be at the Texas Teen Book Festival, and I can't wait!  Yay for author events!!!