Monday, July 14, 2014

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

I may be the only YA librarian in the world who hasn't read Nelson's first novel, The Sky is Everywhere, but I promise I just added it to my to-read list.  Why? Because this advance reader's copy kicked ass.

To be published 9/16/14.  Thanks to Penguin for inviting me to their event at ALA where I got to hear from this author and receive an autographed copy of the ARC.

No spoilers here, folks, since the book hasn't been published yet.

I think this book will come up in the Printz discussions. Why? Because it's different.  It's being promoted as a cross between John Green, Rainbow Rowell, and David Levithan, and that's true.  This is a book for smart YAs who can handle multiple narrators, time jumps, and heavy emotional scenes.

Norah and Jude are artsy twins who don't have the best coping skills. They deny their feelings toward other people, have trouble loving others (including themselves), and act out in typical artsy ways.  At age 13, they rock as twins--knowing each other's thoughts and working together as one.  But three years later, they are broken.  Through their viewpoints, find out why.

I am not artsy. I'm not that emotional. I don't see the magic in much other than nature. So finding out how Noah and Jude see things in the world and how they think was magical to me.  Years ago, my coworkers took a color test and I realized why I had a difficult time understanding the "blue" teachers.  This is a book about those "blues" but it's written in a way that makes this "gold" finally understand what makes them tick.

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