I'd say it's been an incredibly busy part MANY, MANY months. But I'd be lying. Not that I wouldn't be lying, it's been fairly busy. But I've also been lazy. However, posts are going to get more frequent and that's all I've got to say. I've just finished The Sky Is Everywhere and it was fantastic. Here's my review.
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
Review February 2016
“The sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet.”
Jandy Nelson’s ‘The Sky is Everywhere’ was one of those books that you feel an obligation to read because someone’s recommended it to you, because it has a nice cover, because it hasgood reviews, or it’s written by an amazing author. For me, it was all of the above reasons that lead me to read this gem of a novel, and more. This book was recommended to me by a friend who I trust when asking for books she thinks I’ll like. She gets it spot on, almost every time. We had both read ‘I’ll Give You The Sun’, another one of Nelson’s books. We adored it. Nelson has a way of writing that will make you fall in love with the characters so much and feel as if you are part of them. Thankfully, this book only took me two days to read, otherwise Lennie’s guilt (which was intense for the first half of the book) would have started to have an even more serious effect on me than it already did. This book did not disappoint. Though ‘I’ll Give You The Sun’ was definitely a better read in terms of plot and characters, ‘The Sky Is Everywhere’ retained so many of the qualities I loved. Solid 8 stars out of 10.
“I'm the unplugged-in one,
the side-kick sister,
tucked into a corner of her shadow.
Boys followed her everywhere;
they filled the booths at the restaurant where she waitressed,
herded around her at the river.
One day, I saw a boy come up behind her
and pull a strand of her long hair
I understood this-
I felt the same way.
In photographs of us together,
she is always looking at the camera,
and I am always looking at her.”
‘The Sky is Everywhere’ is a book about Lennie Walker, the seventeen-year-old clarinettist whose older sister Bailey, has just passed. She lived her life admiring and loving Bailey. They were as tight as two sisters could be. Raised mainly by their Gram, and Uncle Big a bit on the side, they spend countless nights making stories up about their mother. Lennie has now taken to writing poetry on scraps of paper and on the back of takeaway cups- snippets of her life and conversations she remembers having with Bailey, when she was alive. Lennie thinks she should be grieving, but instead starts falling in love with the new boy from Paris, Joe Fontaine, and Toby, her dead sister’s boyfriend. She starts to piece herself back together, but not with breaking hearts (including her own) on the way. It’s a story full of laughs, grieving, SOBBING, romance, and… Joe Fontaine.
“And then he smiles, and in all the places around the globe where it's night, day breaks.”
I recently saw a review for ‘The Maze Runner’. The reviewer said it was a Lemonade book. It started off bitter, but become surprisingly enjoyable and sweet. ‘Everywhere’ was that kind of book. I despised it when I started off. It annoyed me to extremes. I didn’t enjoy the characters, or the cringe-y, teenager-y romance. I couldn’t understand why she was dealing with two boys- spending whole mornings with the gorgeous trumpet-player Joe and then going back to her house, apologising to Bailey over and over, only to make out with Toby. Yet again. She was getting on my nerves.
120 pages later, I started to understand what all the hype was about, and that revelation was incredible.
“I hear him whisper ‘Oh Joe, you've got it so bad.’"
Besides falling in love with the book, I was falling in love with Joe… alongside Lennie, of course. I was basically Lennie, that’s how good Jandy Nelson was at making me feel part of the book. But Lennie couldn’t stop making those stupid mistakes that were breaking both Joe and Toby’s hearts! I couldn’t stand it, and it took me a long time to finally figure out and understand how she could do that to them, herself, or Bailey. It took effort. You can’t blame me for the amount of description gone into describing the Fontaine brothers- with their long eyelashes and smiles that ‘light up the whole world’. You really, really can’t blame me.
“I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the storytelling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever. You can tell your story any way you damn well please. It’s your solo.”
This book was fairly well written, but nothing mind-blowing, unlike ‘I’ll Give You The Sun’. It was profound, funny, and filled with lots of scenes including her and Joe, her and her sister, or her and Toby. I hated Toby.
One of my main problems with this book was that, although it was short, it kind of dragged on. I found it predictable a lot of the time. Halfway through the story, things that looked like they were trying to be exciting, were actually painfully obvious. ‘Is Joe finding all the notes?’, ‘Does she end up with Joe?’, ‘Does she get a sign from Bailey?’, ‘I bet she forgives Toby’ and ‘Oh my gosh, her mum’s going to come back to her’. These were my predictions throughout the whole book, and although they weren’t all correct, I shouldn’t even have guessed at some of these things that early on in the book. Jandy Nelson can write great characters and events, but she can’t leave any suspense for the readers, and that’s always a let-down for me. Her characters don’t come to realise things gradually in the story, it just hits them, leaving little room for us to pick up evidence and dive into the deeper meaning. In a paragraph, she describes the whole theme of the book for us, right there:
“My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.”
She spends the whole book wondering what’s happening to her, and instead of her slowly starting to realise and come to terms with her life- there it is. The whole book. It’s not even a spoiler, guys. That kind of annoyed me.
Either way, I thought this book was a really interesting, fairly-new take on dealing with the grief and guilt that comes with losing a loved one. It acknowledges so many things and really opens up your eyes, I just wish it had been presented to us in a different way. Nonetheless, that passage is a beautiful string of words.
I would write more about Joe, but I have to leave some room for the other characters, so I’m just going to sum it all up with a couple of sentences each on my opinions of them.
The main character, Lennie, isn’t instantly lovable, but I never disliked her. She was so confused and so full of love that I eventually came to love and sympathise with her. She was attached to her older sister, and admired her, but was never jealous, and I think that shows how bright their love for each other was. She has so many good memories with her, and when she kissed Toby, she was so ashamed and regretful that my heart went out to her. I loved her love for books, passion for clarinet, and love for Joe, Gram, her mum, Uncle Big, her best friend and so many more people. Heartbroken Lennie Walker isn’t a girl I’m going to be forgetting soon, that’s for sure.
Gram was one of my favourite characters. She cared about everyone, and her plants, and of course, the Fontaine boys. I loved the way she laughed and all her little quirks. She was such a kind lady, but she carried so many burdens, and I couldn’t ever imagine being in her troubled place. She was the strongest character in the story. I loved her for that. And, of course, I’d love to know who her ‘crush’ is, that old lady ;)
Toby, Toby, Toby. I hated Toby. I feel bad, because he’s been through so much, but he was the one to make the first move so many times on Lennie. I don’t know why I hated him so much, but he messed up the story. This story could have still been a great story with him out of the way. I wish he had been. But, what’s done is done. I’m not wasting any more words on him.
JOE FONTAINE IS AN ABSOLUTE ANGEL. He is so pure, and beautiful, that I can barely bear to write about him. I’ve just read a whole book about him, and I probably will again. Just for him. He’s incredibly gorgeous, passionate, talented, and caring. If anything is going to make you read this book- it’s him… and his brothers. Just do it, I swear.
As far as I know, there is not a sequel to this book, and there won’t be one coming out. Warner Bros. has bought rights to making a movie and Selena Gomez(?!?!?!?!/1/1/1/!?!?!?!?!?1/1/) is reported to be starring in it. But that’s all the news there is on it. If there is a movie, I don’t know if I’ll go to see it. They couldn’t ever compare to the books and these castings are never done right. That’s all I have to say about this book (actually it’s not, but I’ll end here for your sake). I 100% recommend you read it, YA-Romance-lover or not. It was a solid 8 stars out of 10, which is pretty damn good in my book. Stick with it and it won’t disappoint. Try not to cry too much ;))
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
Review February 2016
“The sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet.”
Jandy Nelson’s ‘The Sky is Everywhere’ was one of those books that you feel an obligation to read because someone’s recommended it to you, because it has a nice cover, because it hasgood reviews, or it’s written by an amazing author. For me, it was all of the above reasons that lead me to read this gem of a novel, and more. This book was recommended to me by a friend who I trust when asking for books she thinks I’ll like. She gets it spot on, almost every time. We had both read ‘I’ll Give You The Sun’, another one of Nelson’s books. We adored it. Nelson has a way of writing that will make you fall in love with the characters so much and feel as if you are part of them. Thankfully, this book only took me two days to read, otherwise Lennie’s guilt (which was intense for the first half of the book) would have started to have an even more serious effect on me than it already did. This book did not disappoint. Though ‘I’ll Give You The Sun’ was definitely a better read in terms of plot and characters, ‘The Sky Is Everywhere’ retained so many of the qualities I loved. Solid 8 stars out of 10.
“I'm the unplugged-in one,
the side-kick sister,
tucked into a corner of her shadow.
Boys followed her everywhere;
they filled the booths at the restaurant where she waitressed,
herded around her at the river.
One day, I saw a boy come up behind her
and pull a strand of her long hair
I understood this-
I felt the same way.
In photographs of us together,
she is always looking at the camera,
and I am always looking at her.”
‘The Sky is Everywhere’ is a book about Lennie Walker, the seventeen-year-old clarinettist whose older sister Bailey, has just passed. She lived her life admiring and loving Bailey. They were as tight as two sisters could be. Raised mainly by their Gram, and Uncle Big a bit on the side, they spend countless nights making stories up about their mother. Lennie has now taken to writing poetry on scraps of paper and on the back of takeaway cups- snippets of her life and conversations she remembers having with Bailey, when she was alive. Lennie thinks she should be grieving, but instead starts falling in love with the new boy from Paris, Joe Fontaine, and Toby, her dead sister’s boyfriend. She starts to piece herself back together, but not with breaking hearts (including her own) on the way. It’s a story full of laughs, grieving, SOBBING, romance, and… Joe Fontaine.
“And then he smiles, and in all the places around the globe where it's night, day breaks.”
I recently saw a review for ‘The Maze Runner’. The reviewer said it was a Lemonade book. It started off bitter, but become surprisingly enjoyable and sweet. ‘Everywhere’ was that kind of book. I despised it when I started off. It annoyed me to extremes. I didn’t enjoy the characters, or the cringe-y, teenager-y romance. I couldn’t understand why she was dealing with two boys- spending whole mornings with the gorgeous trumpet-player Joe and then going back to her house, apologising to Bailey over and over, only to make out with Toby. Yet again. She was getting on my nerves.
120 pages later, I started to understand what all the hype was about, and that revelation was incredible.
“I hear him whisper ‘Oh Joe, you've got it so bad.’"
Besides falling in love with the book, I was falling in love with Joe… alongside Lennie, of course. I was basically Lennie, that’s how good Jandy Nelson was at making me feel part of the book. But Lennie couldn’t stop making those stupid mistakes that were breaking both Joe and Toby’s hearts! I couldn’t stand it, and it took me a long time to finally figure out and understand how she could do that to them, herself, or Bailey. It took effort. You can’t blame me for the amount of description gone into describing the Fontaine brothers- with their long eyelashes and smiles that ‘light up the whole world’. You really, really can’t blame me.
“I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the storytelling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever. You can tell your story any way you damn well please. It’s your solo.”
This book was fairly well written, but nothing mind-blowing, unlike ‘I’ll Give You The Sun’. It was profound, funny, and filled with lots of scenes including her and Joe, her and her sister, or her and Toby. I hated Toby.
One of my main problems with this book was that, although it was short, it kind of dragged on. I found it predictable a lot of the time. Halfway through the story, things that looked like they were trying to be exciting, were actually painfully obvious. ‘Is Joe finding all the notes?’, ‘Does she end up with Joe?’, ‘Does she get a sign from Bailey?’, ‘I bet she forgives Toby’ and ‘Oh my gosh, her mum’s going to come back to her’. These were my predictions throughout the whole book, and although they weren’t all correct, I shouldn’t even have guessed at some of these things that early on in the book. Jandy Nelson can write great characters and events, but she can’t leave any suspense for the readers, and that’s always a let-down for me. Her characters don’t come to realise things gradually in the story, it just hits them, leaving little room for us to pick up evidence and dive into the deeper meaning. In a paragraph, she describes the whole theme of the book for us, right there:
“My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.”
She spends the whole book wondering what’s happening to her, and instead of her slowly starting to realise and come to terms with her life- there it is. The whole book. It’s not even a spoiler, guys. That kind of annoyed me.
Either way, I thought this book was a really interesting, fairly-new take on dealing with the grief and guilt that comes with losing a loved one. It acknowledges so many things and really opens up your eyes, I just wish it had been presented to us in a different way. Nonetheless, that passage is a beautiful string of words.
I would write more about Joe, but I have to leave some room for the other characters, so I’m just going to sum it all up with a couple of sentences each on my opinions of them.
The main character, Lennie, isn’t instantly lovable, but I never disliked her. She was so confused and so full of love that I eventually came to love and sympathise with her. She was attached to her older sister, and admired her, but was never jealous, and I think that shows how bright their love for each other was. She has so many good memories with her, and when she kissed Toby, she was so ashamed and regretful that my heart went out to her. I loved her love for books, passion for clarinet, and love for Joe, Gram, her mum, Uncle Big, her best friend and so many more people. Heartbroken Lennie Walker isn’t a girl I’m going to be forgetting soon, that’s for sure.
Gram was one of my favourite characters. She cared about everyone, and her plants, and of course, the Fontaine boys. I loved the way she laughed and all her little quirks. She was such a kind lady, but she carried so many burdens, and I couldn’t ever imagine being in her troubled place. She was the strongest character in the story. I loved her for that. And, of course, I’d love to know who her ‘crush’ is, that old lady ;)
Toby, Toby, Toby. I hated Toby. I feel bad, because he’s been through so much, but he was the one to make the first move so many times on Lennie. I don’t know why I hated him so much, but he messed up the story. This story could have still been a great story with him out of the way. I wish he had been. But, what’s done is done. I’m not wasting any more words on him.
JOE FONTAINE IS AN ABSOLUTE ANGEL. He is so pure, and beautiful, that I can barely bear to write about him. I’ve just read a whole book about him, and I probably will again. Just for him. He’s incredibly gorgeous, passionate, talented, and caring. If anything is going to make you read this book- it’s him… and his brothers. Just do it, I swear.
As far as I know, there is not a sequel to this book, and there won’t be one coming out. Warner Bros. has bought rights to making a movie and Selena Gomez(?!?!?!?!/1/1/1/!?!?!?!?!?1/1/) is reported to be starring in it. But that’s all the news there is on it. If there is a movie, I don’t know if I’ll go to see it. They couldn’t ever compare to the books and these castings are never done right. That’s all I have to say about this book (actually it’s not, but I’ll end here for your sake). I 100% recommend you read it, YA-Romance-lover or not. It was a solid 8 stars out of 10, which is pretty damn good in my book. Stick with it and it won’t disappoint. Try not to cry too much ;))