Staff Pick
This book left me breathless. Jandy Nelson's language is entrancing, and you will not find a more spellbinding love story than the one in this book. Equal parts heartbreaking, interesting, and innovative, I'll Give You the Sun is a story about fraternal twins finding their own respective places in the world. Jude tries to decode her grandmother's journals, and Noah finds himself falling for a boy he meets in art class. And together, they also find out the secrets that lie within their own family. Recommended By Connor M., Powells.com
This story is told by the main characters — a set of twins, both learning new things about who they are and how that impacts their relationship with each other as well as the world. The twist is that they're telling their stories from different years. Noah is an artist and describes the world in imagined paintings and drawings. Jude is discovering how much she's grown in three years. They're both discovering what it means to be yourself. Recommended By Sarah G., Powells.com
The best contemporary YA fiction I've ever read, hands down. Twins Noah and Jude (both artists) alternate as storytellers, with a three-year gap between their narratives. Both have beautiful, clear voices, and you won't be able to rest until you see their stories through (and find out what happened in the years in between). Recommended By Madeline S., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell
Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways... until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they'd have a chance to remake their world.
This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing often all at once.
Review
"This is the big one — the blazing story of once inseparable twins whose lives are torn apart by tragedy." Entertainment Weekly
Review
"A resplendent novel....Art and wonder fill each page." School Library Journal, starred review
Review
“The novel is structurally brilliant, moving back and forth across timelines to reveal each teen's respective exhilaration and anguish....Nelson's prose scintillates...dizzyingly visual....Here's a narrative experience readers won't soon forget.” Kirkus
Review
"I'll Give You the Sun is a daydream...otherworldly and mesmerizing....Nelson's evocative language envelops one's imagination...an exquisite surrender to wonder and possibilities." The Boston Globe
Review
"A wild, beautiful, and profoundly moving novel. Jandy Nelson's writing is so electric, so alive, her pages practically glow in the dark." Ransom Riggs, New York Times bestselling author of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Hollow City
About the Author
Jandy Nelson, like her characters in I'll Give you the Sun, comes from a superstitious lot. She was tutored from a young age in the art of the four-leaf clover hunt; she knocks wood, throws salt, and carries charms in her pockets. Her debut novel, The Sky Is Everywhere, was on multiple Best Books of the Year lists, was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, earned numerous starred reviews, has been translated widely, and continues to enjoy great international success. Currently a full-time writer, Jandy lives and writes in San Francisco, California — not far from the settings of The Sky Is Everywhere and I'll Give You the Sun.