From the Bookshelf of Addicted to YA…

I'll Give You the Sun

Jandy Nelson

Start date: January 1, 2015

Finish date: January 31, 2015

Discussion: Stand Alone

Why we're reading this: It won the poll for the stand alone BOTM
[close] It won the poll for the stand alone BOTM

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Stand Alone

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What Members Thought

Jan 26, 2015 alana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, making-things, teachers-and-pupils, art-school, audiobook, addicted-to-ya-2015

I’ll Give You the Sun is a well-crafted young adult novel in which twin protagonists tell differing perspectives of their early to mid-teens during which time they suffered personal tragedies and painful sexual awakenings. The storytelling trick is that Noah’s story takes place “before” everything while Jude’s narration begins a couple years “after” the big events. The book progresses toward an inevitable intertwining of the two when all is revealed and made whole. The flip-flopping is a fun nar I’ll Give You the Sun is a well-crafted young adult novel in which twin protagonists tell differing perspectives of their early to mid-teens during which time they suffered personal tragedies and painful sexual awakenings. The storytelling trick is that Noah’s story takes place “before” everything while Jude’s narration begins a couple years “after” the big events. The book progresses toward an inevitable intertwining of the two when all is revealed and made whole. The flip-flopping is a fun narrative tool, though the missing gaps are very intuitive to fill in before it’s all spelled out for the reader (and the twins, for that matter).

I genuinely loved Noah’s story. His experiences were so believable, and his reactions seemed so real. Listening to this as an audiobook, I got so excited when the male narrator returned to pick up where we’d last left our boy. Jude’s tale made me much more frustrated. (view spoiler)

Another thing I loved about the book is the realistic and emotional portrayal of creating art both as a teenager and an adult. I’ve never really read a young adult novel that did this in such an easy-to-identify-with way (Though shout out to A. G. Howard’s Splintered series for some recent use of art-making in YA fiction). Although looking back, all the artists are fairly emotionally unstable, I didn’t actually find that manipulative or stereotypical…just believable. Maybe I don’t read enough realistic fiction! Well, the neat and tidy ending is more than a bit lending toward fantasy. (view spoiler) Finally, I would totally read a book from Heather’s perspective. Oh, and this was an Addicted to YA BOTM for January 2015.
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