Review: The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Title: The Sky Is Everywhere
Author: Jandy Nelson
Summary: Read Goodreads Synopsis
Source: Purchased paperback
Buy: Amazon ~*~ Barnes & Noble
Caution: May contain spoilers


My Thoughts:

Lennie Walker lost her sister Bailey. She lives with Gram (mom’s mom) and Big, her uncle. They share in the grieving of Bailey, along with Bailey’s boyfriend Toby, who’s always around. In the midst of the pain and sadness, Lennie and Toby get drawn together into something more. While this is going on, she meets Joe, the new guy who is an amazing clarinet player (just like Lennie is). He starts to take an interest in her, visiting with her and her family. She finds this secretly thrilling.

Of course, two guys and one girl is not a good thing to have going on. With both Toby and Joe showing up all the time, their paths are bound to cross.

Lennie deals with losing Bailey by smelling her clothes, calling her cell phone and leaving messages, and she writes poems and scatters them everywhere. She faces it and doesn’t at the same time. She holds back on her potential as a clarinetist. Upon reaching the moment of truth at the end of Part One, my heart had a real life reaction, guilt washing over. In Part Two everything comes together--new chapters open in Lennie’s life and her heart opens and she lets people in again.

The Sky Is Everywhere is an absolutely potent read. You can sense it upon reading the first few pages how much it’s going to make you hurt and then glue you back together in the end. The love Lennie feels, you can feel it breathe inside yourself. It’s purely amazing. AMAZING. The poems getting scattered is the coolest thing. Jandy Nelson definitely makes a strong and wonderfully beautiful debut in this novel. It’s impact will change your life and thinking. This goes on a  list of MUST reads, along with novels like Gayle Forman’s If I Stay and Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why.

My Rating:

Exceptional... Stay up until AT LEAST 1 AM!

~Jessica