The Sky is Everywhere - Jandy Nelson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Sky is Everywhere

AUTHOR Jandy Nelson
GENRE Young Adult – Fiction
FORM Audiobook

SYNOPSIS Dealing with the recent and sudden death of her sister, Lennie is discovering a lot about herself. Mainly that compared to the bright, sunny, and dramatic Bailey, she was always just the sidekick. Now that she’s on her own, Lennie is left without the one person that she could always count on. Trying to cope with the grief, Lennie starts to gravitate to Toby, Bailey’s boyfriend. The two of them together begin to find sparks of life, however betraying to Bailey that might be. But then the new boy at school, Joe, also slides into Lennie’s life, and things start getting really exciting, and precarious.

REVIEWI saw another review that said that this book had an “unoriginal/common plot,” and I do agree, but there is so much beauty in this book, and poetic verse, and healing. The Sky is Everywhere really is just a beautiful book all around. There are so many different things about the book that I really enjoyed, that listing them would not only spoil the book – but it would take all day. Some of the major points were Lennie’s growth. Starting out just sort of floating through life, it is easy to track her progress through the grief and just becoming a better person gradually throughout the book. Another thing I loved, the comparison of Toby to the moon and Joe to the sun. Complete opposites, for the different parts of Lennie.

I can be honest and say, a few times I didn’t really want to go forward listening to this book. I really liked Toby a lot, and I liked Joe a lot too. And everyone knows, it was inevitable that the two were going to collide, and things were going to blow up. Stuff has to get destroyed before it can be put back together. The loss of Bailey seeping through every bit of Lennie’s words, her life; I could hardly stand the thought of the “boy explosion,” so I was starting to decide to opt out. But the thing is, the story stuck with me. When I wasn’t listening to it, the poetry the desire to keep going was always there with me. I HAD to go back and keep listening, to get it all over with, and then resolved. ….and it is THESE moments that define my absolute adoration of books! The authors who suck you in and keep you going. It really doesn’t matter that this story has been done before, what matters is that Jandy Nelson told HER story, and captivated me.

WHAT I LOVED I loved the point that we are all authors of our own story. This doesn’t mean we can manipulate others, because they are writing their story – but we can go and do what we can with our own. Jandy Nelson is much more elegant at saying it than I am… I also loved with Joe would speak French – I sort of wanted a love confession in French…I mean, he was pretty romantic and all.

NOT SO MUCH I sort of didn’t like how we “met” Joe. I don’t know, he came off as EXTREMELY perfect. Also, I’ve never read Wurthing Heights, but I can tell you that after this book, I won’t. I don’t actually go and seek after sad stories on purpose.

SONG DEDICATION “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” Green Day It was meant to be. Right after I was done listening to this book, I switched over to music, all songs on shuffle, and this was the first song that played.

View all my reviews