I'll Give You the Sun

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gorgeous and moving and heart-breaking and hopeful, all at the same time. The writing is so transcendent and descriptive, it often felt like I could see the action taking place in front of my eyes. I loved the narrators alternating between Noah at age 13/14, telling the story of what broke them, to Jude at age 16, telling the story of how they were healed. The more we lived inside each of their heads, the more we loved each of them, and truly felt both their agony and ecstasy.

I loved living inside Noah's head because everything was vivid Technicolor, full of life and felt with deep passion. His brilliance both connected him with and disconnected him from the world around him. When we finally got inside Jude's head, she was so locked up with guilt, she was being strangled by it. If she hadn't met Oscar and Guillermo, if she hadn't fought to free herself from her stone prison, if the secrets hadn't come out, she would have eventually imploded.

Most of the time, when teens fall in love and talk about forever and soul mates, the cynic in me rises up and rolls her eyes and says, "yeah, sure." Despite my natural cynicism, though, I found myself truly believing in the emotional connections between these characters, in the whole idea of split-apart souls, and people who are meant to be together. It doesn't mean I don't think there's anyone else out there that Noah and Jude could be happy with, other than Brian and Oscar; it just means I believe in the strength of their connection, their passion to be together. Who knows what will happen down the road, but for now, they have each other, and they have happiness.

I love how interconnected everyone was, the impact each person had on the twins and each other. Noah and Jude both knew Oscar, but a different version of Oscar. Noah and Jude both knew Guillermo, but a different version of Guillermo. Noah and Jude both loved their mother, but knew a different version of her. The accident was no one's fault, and changed everything; but somehow, still, nothing was changed. The twins' mother is a hard character to deal with because she has such a strong pull on their lives, and the power to make them delirious happy or ridiculously miserable. I truly believe that she loved the twins' father, so it's heartbreaking to see their relationship fall apart.

Most of the time, when books wrap up happily (or as happily as they can), as much as I desire happy endings, part of my can't help but think, "well, that was convenient." Not so this time: this ending felt happy in its own way and perfectly perfect, and this is definitely a book I'd recommend.

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