Book-Crush Wednesday (3)

It's Wednesday! So I debated about whether to continue with SCBWI posts or if I should keep up the book-crush posts and postpone my next set of notes for tomorrow. But since I just sent a rambling cra-cra email to the author of the book on today's book-crush Wednesday, I figured I had to go through and continue telling everyone how AWESOME the book is (though I guarantee you have heard it from about everyone else under the sun.)

My current book crush is on The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson. And let me tell you, blog readers...I am crushing on this book hard. Like so hard that I'm hyperventilating thinking about how awesome it is, and I might have taken it with me to SCBWI on the off chance that the author would be there and I could run up to her and scream "OMG I LOVE YOU SO MUCH PLEASE SIGN THIS AND BTW BE MY BEST FRIEND." She wasn't there (which is probably good because I would have seriously embarrassed myself), although it turns out bringing books like that was not that crazy of an idea because a lot of awesome debut authors were there, just in attendance like regular people (THEY'RE LIKE ME! See, I've gone super crazy. That's what this book does to me. I bet Jandy Nelson gets Google alerts with her name in them and is reading this post right now and backing away slowly from her computer thinking I'm a psycho.)

Anyway, this book took the blog review world by storm, and there were several weeks where I saw the cover art all over the place. But I have to admit that it didn't really grab me. (The UK cover, pictured below, is far superior in my opinion and is WAY cooler inside.) The big heart, floating in the sky...it seemed kind of chic-lit-y, and I just wasn't into it. But then the reviews were so positive, and my friend Jessica spoke highly of it, then Tahereh over at Grab a Pen wrote this review/letter to Jandy, and since Tahereh is one of my most favorite bloggers ever, I finally gave in.

And, uhm, WOW. WOW.WOW.WOW.

Listen, people. This book will change your life. The writing is like painfully amazing. It makes you laugh and cry, sometimes in the same sentence. I would be smiling because the word play was wonderful, or there was a great exchange or sweet scene, and suddenly there was HEARTBREAK and TRAGEDY and I wanted to cry. The main character, Lennie, writes poetry and leaves the poems all over town. The way the poetry is used to move the plot forward and give a little back story is really smart - Jandy Nelson has an MFA in poetry, as well as an MFA in writing for children and YA from VCFA (OMG THAT'S WHERE I'M GOING! We'll be bffs, I know it.)

The teen voice in The Sky is Everywhere is very true, and I think that's why the book is so funny. I think Lennie was just a funny girl, particularly before her sister died. But her sister's death overshadows her humor and then she has to struggle with questions like - is it OK for me to be happy even though I'm supposed to be grieving? What kind of normal person wants to kiss boys at a funeral? Am I moving on too quickly? (Things are about to get real, so let's put on our emotional caps.) My mom died when I was 18, and I can tell you first-hand that the grief Lennie experiences is so real. It was like Jandy Nelson was inside my head, reading the mind of my teenage self. Lennie thought things that I thought, and even though my relationship with my mom was complicated, and in some ways Lennie deals with things I couldn't relate to, in other ways I felt like the pain Lennie was experiencing was totally real. I could feel it in my bones, in my head, and in my heart. This book is just real, and it stays with you.

So. I know a lot of you have read this. But some of you probably haven't. Some of you are probably rolling your eyes, thinking, "Ugh. Another review of The Sky is Everywhere. How good can that book be?" AWESOME.* That's how good.

*I know I throw that word around a lot on this blog. I mean if you did a wordle of my blog, I'm pretty sure awesome would be the biggest word. But if ever a book or post or topic was deserving of that word, that phrase meaning "full of awe," it would be The Sky is Everywhere.
**If you still don't believe me, go here and read chapters 1 and 2. FOR FREE. Then go here and buy the book and support your indie book store and your favorite new debut author.