Book Love: I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

I love this book so much that I want to eat it so that I can keep its words forever with me. (Is that weird?)

I love this book so much I oscillate between it making me want to be a better writer and it making me want to admit defeat, for I will never write characters that come alive on the page the way Noah and Jude do.

I love this book so much that I want to share it with you. So, here we go...

I put I'll Give You The Sun on my list of absolute favorite character-driven YA & MG books. It's right up there with Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor and Park and David Arnold's Mosquitoland, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Wonder by RJ Palacio. (All amazing books...if you haven't read them yet, go do it now!)

These are books that sucked me in from page one, with characters that captured my heart, and held me until the sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet, end. These are books that are extremely well written, with interesting stories that keep you engaged and guessing. But they are ultimately all about the characters--the three-dimensional, quirky, realistic, lovable, amazing characters.

In the case of I'll Give You The Sun, that means it's all about Noah and Jude. Noah and Jude are twin brother and sister who've been inseparable since birth. That is until something comes between them...something called puberty. The book alternates between Noah's point of view beginning at age 13 and Jude's beginning at age 16, and tells the story of how they fall apart and how, eventually, they find their way back to each other.

A lot happens in between. A lot of big life stuff. And a lot of little life stuff. It's all the stuff of finding yourself and finding your way, and the painfully amazing stuff of growing up. And love. It's about love, too.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what it's about. You don't need to know any of that. All you need to know is that it's amazing and you should read it.

So there.

For a list of more books that I've loved over the years, check out the Books Worth Reading tab at the top of this page.

And, until next time, happy reading.


P.S. Thanks to my niece, Katie, for loaning me the book. :-)