I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Amy   
Lynnie

young adult, mystery, romance

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson is a contemporary young adult novel set in a California coastal town which centers around twin siblings Jude and Noah.  Told from both of their points of view, their personalities are unique, artsy, and unusual.  Their story is about some difficult situations that families often face.  However, their family seems to get hit with all of it in one tragic week.

Amy's review

I loved this book! I had no idea what to expect when I started reading it. Heck, I might have never read it except that my sister put it on the Kindle account we share and I wanted a Kindle book to read at the time. The characters were so vibrant and full of wonderful exaggerations about their feelings and views….bursting with teen drama! They were stunningly expressive, artistic, creative, and funny.

In a way, Jude and Noah sometimes seemed a little too “adult” for their ages—similar to the way I feel about John Green’s characters. But, I felt Jude and Noah’s personalities were more believable than the mature wit with which Green’s characters are infused. I often don’t feel that Green’s characters are really teenagers, but Jude and Noah were undoubtedly teens. They were so passionate and I couldn’t help but cheer for them. I’ve also never read a novel from the point of view of a gay teenager and found it to be really interesting. It felt realistic to me.

I also loved the way the author shocked me when the story changed timeframes—it changed between Noah’s POV when the twins were aged 13-14 and Jude’s POV when they were 16. In Jude’s passages, things had usually changed so markedly and unexpectedly. I found it really compelling. The ending was very satisfying—perhaps slightly too satisfying, but I’m not one to knock a happy ending.

Lynnie's review

Jude and Noah are twins- inextricably linked forever by a shared womb. They share narration duty in this book, but what makes it interesting is that they are narrating two different periods of time- Noah narrates their lives at 13-14, Jude narrates their lives at age 16. While normally this sort of back and forth play with timelines makes me nutty, it really works in this book as the events that unfold in the past, have repercussions that the twins have to deal with at age 16. I generally enjoyed Noah's chapters more, but in the end, I came to appreciate Jude's point of view as well.

The writing in this book was hilariously flowery at times. I understood what Jandy Nelson was trying to do- to show us how artistic, creative and observant the characters were but at some point, she crossed a "too-many-metaphors" line with me and I began to roll my eyes at some of the characters' descriptions of their world.

An interesting story over all though, and good use of different narrators really emphasizes the love, jealousy and connection between Noah and Jude.