Review: I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Author: Jandy Nelson

Publisher: Dial Books
Number of Pages: 371

Synopsis:

 "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."

So, we got an ARC of this book awhile back, but I just now got to it and it  was SO good. I picked it up and once I read the first chapter I was immediately hooked. The chapters are set up in a way that in the early years when the twins, Noah and Jude, were only 13 or 14 the story is told by Noah. But, then the story alternates so that the next chapter picks up three years later and is narrated by Jude. I've read this type of book before, but I think this book executed the whole "before and after" sequence incredibly well. It really kept the twins in their own separate worlds while still keeping their stories interconnected.

The best thing about it was that in the earlier years narrated by Noah you can see how different the twins personalities really are, but once you begin to read Jude's chapters three years later you begin to realize that the twins have actually swapped personalities. I thought that was just so cool and interesting I loved reading how the twins evolved and the difficulties they had to endure. Also, since the chapters alternated there were a lot of missing pieces, so I think the suspense that created really kept the story going.

My favorite character was definitely Noah, and I think the main reason for that was that he was the first person we got to read about so I connected with him first instead of Jude. And while I still fell in love with Jude, I felt like I kept waiting for Noah's chapter because I loved his personality and story so much more. 

Overall, I loved this book and its now one of my favorite and the best book I've read so far this year. I definitely recommend it to everyone! 

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!