I'll Give You the Sun

by Jandy Nelson

[Suz @ Bookish Revelations]

I'll Give You The Sun, is the first book that I've read by Jandy Nelson and I'm glad that I had the chance to read such an amazing heartfelt, intense, beautifully written young adult novel. I've seen and heard so many bloggers and booktubers saying how much The Sky Is Everywhere is such a great book and I was hoping that this one would be too and I was so not even a little disappointed. The feelings this book gave me is kind of hard to put into words, because this book made me want to be so much better than I am right now, as a human being. It had the power to awaken things inside of me that I hadn't realize were there, made me want to change the things that I could, and made me look at things from a wider much different perspective than the narrower thin one that I usually peer through. When a book makes me feel this much, opens me up so much wider than I was already, I know the author is going on my automatic buy-list because they poured their heart, soul, and all of their passion for being a writer and telling the best story possible that they can, out onto pages and I respect that a great deal.

I'm serious, I had such an idiotic smile on my face when I finished reading this, that I found it hard to let the book go onto the next person, but since I was on an ARC tour I kind of had to. I'll Give You The Sun is an incredibly sad, beautiful, and twisted story that will pull at heart strings a dozen different ways and make you feel things that you never expected you would be feeling. Nelson has created beautifully drawn, original, and complex characters that are realistically flawed and yet have a lot of love and strength coursing through their veins. It's hard not to find them likable or to emotionally connect with me, as they struggle and grapple with their own issues. There's a shining beauty in the lyrical way that this story has been written, the realisms in the ways that two people who can be as close as anyone could ever possibly be, hurting one another in a number of awful ways and how lies can definitely tear apart any relationship and alter lives forever.

I fell in love with one of the most gorgeous and passionate scenes that really elevated my love for this book and the story it told me to me, as I watched through Jude's as she watched her mentor lovingly sculpt for the very first time in his life. That was such a powerfully intense moment in the book and one that made me love it even more. The representation of how life imitates are and art imitates life are inherently represented in this one scene, full of so much love and bursting with so much faith that it just leaps off of the pages at you. I dare anyone to read that scene and not feel something - ANYTHING - because this is what the book is about wrapped up in one small little passage that is truly unforgettable. This is a story full of so much love, lies, betrayal in the worst possible way, treachery, and soaring faithfulness that nowhere else to go, but up. This is a beautiful lesson in life and all of the ways that it can be beautiful and kind and hard and bitter and full of hurt, but at the end of the day there's a faith that rises above everything. There's a simple beauty in letting go and just be happy in yourself, who you're becoming, and evolving from that into a better version of yourself.

A gorgeously compelling and richly developed thought provoking young adult novel that, I'll Give You The Sun, will put a smile on your face and ALL THE FEELS in your heart. This is a book that contains beautiful magical realism that you won't help, but fall in love with. It should definitely be at the top of your Fall Books Wishlist, for sure. I couldn't give this book anything less than five stars, because it deserve that and so much more.