I'll Give You the Sun

by Jandy Nelson

[girlinthepages]

Actual Rating: 4.5 Stars

This book, hands down, winds the “Perfect Prose” award of 2014 from my blog. I’ve yet to encounter a YA novel that even gets close to incorporating magical realism the way that I’ll Give You the Sun does, and while at first a little jarring, I found it to be a fantastic effect in a novel that focuses so much on artistic expression and with characters who are so emotive. It’s really unlike anything else that I’ve read all year.

I’ll Give You the Sun is an artfully (literally) woven tale about twins who were inseparable as children and who have lost their connection after a tragic family event. The story is told in alternating viewpoints, with Noah narrating the younger years (13-14) and his sister Jude voicing the older years (16). This back and forth narration was done insanely well, with each twin having such a distinct voice yet each having their own little quirks in their narration, from “bible” tips to artwork titles (it sounds strange now but you’ll see how wonderful it is once you read the book- and the fact that their names are both biblical and are ironically perfect for both of their personalities is just so perfect it makes me want to hug the book forever). Both twins narrate their own unique experience of growing up in their small Northern California town with their parents and both deal with a lot of hard topics, especially when it comes to death and sexuality, and it’s so tastefully narrated in a way that never treats any topic in a way that’s taboo, but rather faces these issues honestly and head-on, the way a teenager would in their uncensored mind. I cannot applaud Jandy Nelson enough for her narration.

The prose is also beautiful- there’s literally no other way to describe it. The magical realism is tangible and fleshes out the narration even more (as it exaggerates situations in the same way a teenager would feel everything with their heightened emotions) though sometimes the metaphors and imagery becomes a bit heavy handed and hard to get through. The magical feel of the prose adds the atmosphere of artistic expression throughout the novel: “Sometimes lately, I catch her shadow creeping around my bed at night trying to pull the dreams out of my head.” (57).

Art also plays a huge, huge role in this book. Both characters have such a love/hate relationship with their artistic expression, and art plays such a creative, cathartic, and even at times destructive, force in this book. I’m not very artistic at first so sometimes I felt a little disconnected from the narrative, yet at other times the power art played in the book was so overwhelming that I couldn’t help but itch to create something myself. I don’t want to spoil anything but Jude’s experience (with sculpting) toward the end of the book in particular, when she has a manic moment of needing to free Noah and herself from the rock, from their grief and guilt, and from each other was particularly powerful.

I want to circle back to Noah and Jude’s relationship because it was so incredibly written, more profoundly and insightful than most romances I’ve read. I’m not a twin but this novel made me feel like I understood fully the tether of the unspoken, inseparable bond that lives between two beings who have been together since the minute of their conception. They’re not immune to jealously or ill will too each other, but every action one did impacted the other inexplicably because their connection was so strong, even when it was destructive. It was like they shared a soul, a soul with the power to divide the world up between them like ancient deities in a pantheon of a children’s tale (see? I’m even getting poetic just REVIEWING the book because the prose was so beyond anything I’ve experienced). There was romance for each of the twins in the book, both heartwarming and heartbreaking, but it never overshadowed the importance or power of the sibling bond in the book.

Favorite Quote (And let me tell you it was near impossible to pick just one!):

“You have to see the miracles for there to be miracles.” (212)

Overall: This book has incredible prose with a touch of magical realism and depicts a relationship and connection between siblings so deep that it overshadows the power of most romances I’ve read. Nelson’s prose can make to sympathize and abhor characters at the same time (which you will with the twins, which makes them such fantastic joint protagonists), fall into her narrative and beg to pick up the pieces of her characters life, and lose yourself truly and fully to the power of the pages. Some of themes of artwork were hard for me to connect with fully which is the reason this book merits a 4.5 stars (instead of 5) from me, but I still firmly believe that it’s a definite must-read for any and all fans of contemporary.

This review and others can be found at Girl in the Pages