Book Review: I’ll Give You the Sun

Fire 

Woahhh read this book a longggg time ago but am finally writing the review. Thank gosh I write notes on the book right after I finish otherwise I probably wouldn’t be able to do this.

Y’all, this book is SO SO GOOD. The amount of feels and emotions I had while reading this???? I probably could have flooded my room with my tears. The writing was beautiful, the relationships engrossing, the characters perfectly created. I could RAVE about this, it was so beautiful. 

“We were all heading for each other on a collision course, no matter what. Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.”

At first, Jude and her twin brother Noah, are inseparable. Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude wears red-red lipstick, cliff-dives, and does all the talking for both of them.

Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways . . . but then Jude meets an intriguing, irresistible boy and a mysterious new mentor.

The early years are Noah’s to tell; the later years are Jude’s. But they each have only half the story, and if they can only find their way back to one another, they’ll have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant, award-winning novel from the acclaimed author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.

Let’s play a game of what was it that drew Sydney to read this book???? I’ll give you a hint: broken family, alternate and backwards POV, and emotions. It sounded like my cup of tea. And it was.

So much of this plot left me guessing. Let me just say I love how it was told in this alternating time POV. We can see the beginning of when Jude and Noah grow apart, and the end when they are forced to grow together again, but we don’t truly know why. That’s the middle of the story, which we find out at the end. And I had so many crazy guesses, because so much was left open. Some were right, some were wrong, but the truth was just so fitting and the right amount of twist to leave you breathless. But seriously, if you have an option to write a book in this style, do it. It really left you guessing until the very very end. The stories finally intertwined, and it all bled together, and clicked, and was just wow.

ALSO EVERYONE KNOWS I LOVE WHEN THE TITLE IS ALL CLEVER AND SUCH AND THIS TITLE IS LIKE THAT AND JUST HAS SO MUCH MEANING AFTER READING AND AH IT KILLED ME.

So contrary to a lot of other reviewers, I actually connected to and loved Jude right from the start. It was Noah that had to grow on me.

The best thing about these characters were that they were so real. There were times I hated the characters. They would lie and manipulate each other and do selfish things to hurt the other. But the depth of emotions they felt, and likewise made me feel, and their likes and interests and thoughts just made them so real. They weren’t just characters. I don’t think I could sum up their whole essence in a couple adjectives like you can with most characters. They were flawed. They made me angry. They made mistakes (lots of them). But they loved, and they cared, and they hurt, and they grew, and in the end I felt like I had loved, cared, hurt, and grew along with them. 

Let’s start talking about Jude, because like I mentioned before, I fell in love with her first. She told the current story, which I think engrossed me more. Reading the past, I thought, okay this is happening, but we know what it leads to. But reading the current, we didn’t;t know what was going to come of it. And that kept me reading. I also think I can relate much more to something breaking someone so much that they retreat in on themselves. Jude went from this vivacious, outgoing daredevil to a guilt ridden, punished, utterly confused and broken girl. We see Jude as she is trying to put her pieces back together and wrestle with what has happened in the past. Even though she is broken, even though she’s been horrible, I will defend her to the death because she somehow put into words emotions and thoughts and feelings that I had and didn’t know what to do with. Which is what books are supposed to do, right?

Next is Noah. He’s the fan favorite, but he had to grow on me. In the beginning he was very upset by the fact that he didn’t have his dad’s love*. But he got his mom’s love, and his mom was like a whirlwind: her love was tangible and able to be felt. Jude, on the other had, was just forgotten about. Maybe that’s where my love for her began. We encounter Noah as he’s falling in love for the first time. And boyyyy does he encapsulate all the awkward feelings we’ve all felt with crushes. Trying to be ~romantic~ and ~sexy~ and it not coming across, being unable to show how you feel in just the right way. But as the story picks up and starts to get more twisty, I start to feel for Noah just so much more. He really is THE tortured artist, and not in the gross, bleh, trope-y way. He had so many complex emotions inside of him, many dark, and the only way he could release them was through art. Which was, by the way, beautiful to read.

*Let’s sideline the dad for now. He gets a whole paragraph to himself. 

The father. BOY did I hate him in the beginning. He seemed cold, and unaffectionate, and seemed like he gave Noah conditional love: love based on him acting “straight”. But hands down, the father had the best character arc in the story. And this book has STRONG character arcs. I think my feelings for the father oscillated just like the characters’ did. I hated him, I loved him, I hated him again, and I ended up loving him. He went from a, to borrow Noah’s words, asshat to being the best. 

In the end, I love all the characters because I finally had the full story. And isn’t that kinda like how real life is? You don’t feel completely one dimensional emotions for people. You may hate them at some points and love them at others but once you know the whole story, they are human to you and you cannot help but to love their flawed self. 

This has to get a mention because it was just so unique. This book is FULL of art: in the story, in the words, in the metaphors, in the imagery, in the writing. In fact, this book is art. It’s messy and wild and a little disjointed at points, but it’s whole and it makes you feel. 

That being said, a little caveat. I loved the writing (clearly). But it isn’t for everyone. Some people may think the writing and metaphors are ridiculous. Why is it so artistic? Can’t it just tell the story. And I say: If you don’t love the writing, you won’t love the story. Because the writing is as much a part of the story as the characters and the plot are. 

Of course, I can’t end a raving review like this without some quotes. I’ll be nice though, using this FUN TOGGLE FEATURE you can skip them if you want.

 

Some lovely quotes

• “Meeting your soul mate is like walking into a house you’ve been in before – you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers: You could find your way around in the dark if you had to.”
• “’Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people,’ I say. ‘Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time.’ Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.”
• “People die, I think, but your relationship with them doesn’t. It continues and is ever-changing.”
• “This is what I want: I want to grab my brother’s hand and run back through time, losing years like coats falling from our shoulders.”
• “It’s never occurred to me that the stars are still up there shining even in the daytime when we can’t see them.”
• “It’s time for second chances. It’s time to remake the world.”
• “Our eyes meet and hold, and the world starts to fall away, time does, years rolling up like rugs, until everything that’s happened unhappens, and for a moment, it’s us again, more one than two.”

 

This book really delivers on everything it promises to. It gives a heart wrenching story of two siblings that will make you laugh, cry, rant, rage, love, and overall feel. But to me, it really hit the five star rating because of its reality. I’ve raved about it already in here, but it didn’t just feel like a story. It didn’t feel like something I read once and delve into and enjoy, but come out of knowing it was only fiction. These characters were me. You can tell Nelson just poured her whole self into this book because not only does it feel like an extension of her, but an extension of yourself. 

Which twin was your favorite: Noah or Jude? What did you think about the writing style?