I galloped through this excellent first novel of Jandy Nelson's. One of my favorite YA reads of the last year or so, The Sky is Everywhere was both romantic and at the same time deeply sad, and each character felt real and alive to me in a way that is sometimes too rare in YA. What is more, Nelson tackled the hugeness of grief and the messiness of it in a way that felt deeply relatable, even as Lennie and others made choices that were clearly morally less than ideal. A wonderful, teary, lovely read, with beautiful prose worthy of its poet author. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson is one nice book to hold and look at, or at least my library edition in particular was anyhow. It has the appearance of a diary, which is a little bit wrecked (mine might have been a little more wrecked looking then it was meant to be, as it’s from the library) with poems scattered throughout the book. It’s certainly gorgeous.The same could be said for the writing. The writing style is breathless and very poetic, (but seeing as Jandy Nelson is in fact a poet as well, that should have been expected). Actually it kind of reminds me a bit of the writing style of Why we broke up by David Handler. (I don’t know if anyone else sees that....)I personally adored the setting of the area where the characters live. I loved the fact that there was still a hippie culture people such as Grandma and the uncle were hanging on to. The book is a definite clear cut contemporary. But, there was just something to it........I don’t really know how to explain this; I've just put off writing this review because I just sound like a crazy person when I type it out. The setting just had this sense of magic to it. Yeah, I know what do I even mean, there’s no magic what so ever in this book. Just, when I imagining the setting I could see her house as this lovely little cottage with a big front garden with rolling grass, far off from other houses. The fact that she could walk through the forest and reach someone’s house, it was kind of fairy tale-esque, so different and there’s a certain kind of magic to it because of it and I just loved the setting. Okay? My favourite part of the book, I’d say. I can’t explain it.My imagining is probably really inaccurate there probably is very little grass in North California, and I doubt their house was meant be like a cottage. Other things I liked? I thought the love triangle and the different relationships the main character Lennie had with the two boys was really interesting and well explored. This is a huge compliment considering how overused love triangles are. I guess the relationship with Joe went to ‘ I love you’ too quick, but this melded well because of how angsty the two are.Faults? I think the Uncle character wasn't developed very well, but really over all this was a great book; I don’t have a lot to pick out. Actually, who and where is their dad? They never mentioned him. He could have just left, but a mention of him would've been nice.
What do You think about The Sky Is Everywhere (2010)?
Kind of a cliche' book. Was a cute short read.
—shrimp
