Review: The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Title: The Sky Is Everywhere
Author: Jandy Nelson
Series: None
Genre: YA
Release Date: June 7, 2010
Publisher: Walker Books
Edition: Hardback
Blurb:
Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey
dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey’s boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie’s own. Joe is the new boy in
town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they’re the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can’t collide without the whole wide world exploding.


I had this book on my wishlist for quite some time, so when it arrived at my house I devoured it in one sitting.
Lennie is a very likeable character who's confused about a lot of things and it's dealing with the death of her older sister. Through the book we see her and her family dealing with the pain of Bailey's death as well as seeing them try to move on with their lives.

Lennie's family is very entertaining. We have her grandmother, a gardener that believes that Lennie's life is reflected in a plant and when it gets sick everyone starts to worry and her uncle Big, an ultimate romantic who has been married a lot of times and has had countless romances.

Then there's the "love triangle". Toby, her sister's boyfriend and Joe, the new kid at school. Both of them are really different and give something important to Lennie. Toby understands her pain like nobody else while Joe makes her feel alive again.

I loved the format of the book. In the story Lennie writes notes and then leaves them in random places. In between chapters we got to see some of the notes she wrote, and that gave the characters a new depth, especially when the notes were transcriptions of conversations Lennie had with her sister Bailey.

While this is a book that deals with the pain of death, it's done in such way that it isn't dark at all. It approaches it in a light and hopeful sort of way that works beautifully in the book.
At the end, this is an incredible novel about love, dealing with the loss of a loved one and how to move on without that person in your life. This is a must read for YA lovers.


Memorable Lines:

"Everyone calls me Lennie," I say. Not very original, but better than guh, which was the alternative, and it does the trick. He looks down at his feet for a second and I take a breath and regroup for Round Two.

"Been wondering about that actually, Lennon after John?" he asks, again holding my gaze—it's entirely possible I'm going to faint. Or burst into flames.

I nod. "Mom was a hippie." This is northern Northern California after all—the final frontier of freakerdom. Just in the eleventh grade we have a girl named Electricity, a guy named Magic Bus, and countless flowers: Tulip, Begonia, and Poppy—all parent-given-on-the-birth-certificate names. Tulip is a two-ton bruiser of a guy who would be the star of our football team if we were the kind of school that had a football team. We're not. We're the kind of school that has optional morning meditation in the gym.

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