Book Review: I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Title: I'll Give You the Sun 
Author: Jandy Nelson
Published: 2nd April 2015
Publisher: Walker Books

Review

I'll Give You the Sun is an utterly beautiful novel that left me pretty much speechless. This is one of those novels that will take your breath away and leave you with a serious book hangover for days.

This tells the story of Noah and Jude. 13 year old twins that are incredibly close until a tragedy drives them apart. Three years later at 16 they are barely speaking to each other and their roles seem reversed and what they both don't seem to realise is that each of them is only half of the story and they need to be reconnected to complete it.

As I also discovered when reading Jandy's first  novel, The Sky is Everywhere, her writing is absolutely amazing. It's so incredibly evocative; it gets across each moment in the story so utterly perfectly, you cannot help but feel you are right there in the story with Noah and Jude experiencing and feeling exactly what they are going through.

What was also cleverly done is that the story is split up into parts, one side being Noah's at 13 and the other, Jude's at 16. I think they are the most involved, in-depth characters I have ever come across in a novel before and not only that, they are completely believable as people. I loved flicking between each of their viewpoints and had a particular soft spot for Noah, who at 13 is an outsider hiding his homosexuality and not feeling like he can tell anyone. I found his parts the most gripping and the most colourful, whereas Jude's viewpoint comes after the tragedy and everything felt bland and grey.

Apart from loving Noah as a character, his love story is also a delight to read. The chemistry between him and Brian is nothing short of magical; true soul mates. Jandy completely sucked me in with this, it was wonderful to read.

Although this was initially a bit of a slow start for me, once it got going, it really got going and I could not think about anything else, I just had to read it.

A beautifully and brilliantly emotional novel from Jandy Nelson.