Review: The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Title: The Sky Is Everywhere
Author: Jandy Nelson
Publisher: Dial
Pages: 272
Release date: March 9th 2010
Genre: Contemporary YA; romance
Source: Bought
Find out more: Amazon ; Goodreads


Goodreads description:

Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey's boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie's own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they're the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can't collide without the whole wide world exploding.

First sentence:

Gram is worried about me.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I´d heard so many great things about The Sky Is Everywhere that I had pretty high expectations. And for once, my expectations were met - this book is heartbreakingly beautiful!

I loved the writing, it's beautiful and vivid. I even enjoyed Lennie's poetry. Usually, I hate when in between the acutal novel there's writing by the main character. It either doesn't sound authentic and seems like it's just the author´s poetry instead of the main character´s because it doesn't match his/her voice, or, if it is authenic, it's amateur-ish and not interesting to read, in my opinion. The Sky Is Everywhere is, I think, the first book where I liked the main character's poetry. It's beautiful and emotional and heartbreaking and made me feel Lennie's grief even more. I loved the whole thing with Lennie writing on napkins, trees, walls, takeaway cups, etc.

The characters are great, fully-developed and multi-dimensional. I could imagine all of them easily, with their unique, fun quirks. I loved the unique family dynamics. Gram and Big are great, enjoyable characters, and I loved reading about the situation with Lennie's mom and finding out about her along with Lennie.

What I loved most, though, are the incredible emotions The Sky Is Everywhere conveys. I've been going through some stuff pretty similar to what happens in this book, so maybe it's different for me, but I cried loads while reading this. Sometimes I didn't know whether I was crying for Bailey or about the real-life situation, but either way, Bailey's grief is portrayed really well, and the whole story is heartbreaking.

I'm split on the romance aspect. On the one hand, I thought Lennie and Joe are adorable together, and Joe's character is swoonworthy. On the other hand, I just don't think the romance is realistic. Joe seems too perfect to be real, and the descriptions of how amazing he is are overdone, just like Lennie and Joe's feelings for one another. It seemed a bit melodramatic how much they said they loved each other considering the short time they'd known each other.

The whole thing with Toby didn't really work for me. I wanted to understand why they did what they did, but I just couldn't. I also think the transition is too fast - they want to jump each other's bones wheneever they see each other, and then suddenly they agree to stop.

Even though I had some problems with Lennie's relationships with Joe and with Toby, this is one amazing book. Emotional and heartfelt, with beautiful writing and quirky characters - I definitely recommend it!