Customer Reviews

The Sky Is Everywhere

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Gold Star Award Winner!

Lennie and Bailey are sisters, best friends, everything to each other. Their mother took off when they were just babies, which Gram has always attributed to the "restless gene" that runs in the family.

When Bailey, vivacious and fiery Bailey, dies of a heart arrhythmia while rehearsing for Romeo & Juliet, Lennie is utterly lost. Without Bailey's guidance, smothering affection, and her untameable spirit, Lennie doesn't know what to do. She has always stood at the sidelines, content to catch just a few rays of Bailey's endless radiance.

Though Lennie can't help but wallow in her grief, the rest of the world carries on, and ultimately, so must she. On her first day back to school she meets the most enchanting boy on earth - fabulously multi-talented musician, Joey Fontaine. Complicating the situation is Bailey's boyfriend, Toby, who turns to Lennie for comfort. In sharing their despair, seeds of attraction manifest and Lennie must struggle to sort through a tumult of emotions roaring inside her.

Forced to come out of her shell, Lennie starts to see how absolutely beautiful yet wondrously confusing life can be. In her contemplation of life and death, Lennie must completely reconsider what it means to truly live.

For the first time in her life, Lennie is all alone - center stage. Whether she is ready or not, it is time for her solo.

Jandy Nelson's debut novel is a heart-wrenching tale of love and forgiveness that will make you laugh and cry all in the same sentence. THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE ties themes of wanderlust, betrayal, and forgiveness in a love story more complex than most young adult authors dare to concoct.

Reviewed by: Amber Gibson

Jandy Nelson keeps passion and romance alive. I could not put this book down. From the crazy Northern Californian family dealing with the loss of their precocious guy-magnet daughter, to the blossoming of her younger sister who was happy to live in her older sister's shadow, to the expressions of mad grief through the sharp awakening of the senses, this story helped me to understand the axis of grief and romance in the body of insane longing. I was laughing out loud and then crying in the turn of a sentence. Extraordinary. Literary. I did not want it to end.

I'm pretty sure I originally became aware of Jandy Nelson's debut novel THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE when my trusty fellow Team Gale-er Adele of Persnickety Snark reviewed it last month. As she frequently does, Adele made me want to read the book right away by stating,

"The Sky is Everywhere is an all encompassing study of grief, the strength of a sisterly bond, the power of attraction and love and ultimately the importance of being true to one's self."

I got a good vibe and immediately noted down the release date and put it on my TBR list. Then I was fortunate enough to win an ARC from the publisher in one of those awesome blink-and-you'll-miss-it Twitter giveaways. Thanks so much, Penguin tweeps! I blew through it in two short sessions and have been thinking about it on and off ever since.

Lennie Walker's life is a little unorthodox. Raised, along with her big sister Bailey, by her highly eccentric grandmother and uncle after her mother hit the road and didn't look back, Lennie's life has been pretty good all things considered. If a bit outside the box. Her grandmother tends a garden like unto the one in Eden, paints willowy green ladies on every available surface of their house, and believes one of her house plants is mystically linked to Lennie. When it sickens, Lennie sickens. When it thrives, she thrives. Her Uncle Big is the town lothario. Five failed marriages down and counting, he has a voice like God's, a marijuana habit, and a strange obsession with raising the dead. The insect dead, to be exact. But when Baily suddenly dies, Lennie's life is thrown off the tracks and she finds herself unable to cope without her larger-than-life sister's lead to follow. Bailey's boyfriend Toby is in a similar situation and the two of them find themselves drawn to each other for that new and unhappy bond they share. Even though they didn't really have much use for each other before. Bailey was the one thing they had in common and now they cling to each other as a means of not losing her completely. When she returns to school and band practice and her best friend Sarah, Lennie still fails to deal with life as it is now. And then Joe Fontaine comes into her life. Gorgeous, dorky, perpetually smiling Joe with his questions and his wanting to know. Why she climbs trees at lunchtime, why she plays the clarinet like a virtuoso yet determinedly sits second chair, and most of all why she's so sad.

Starting out I wasn't so sure. It's hard to get a grip on Lennie and her past right off the bat. And when things start escalating between her and Toby you do begin to wonder about this girl and whether or not she's going to fall all over herself throughout the novel and whether or not you'll be able to watch the train wreck. But then Jandy Nelson's lovely writing steps in and gracefully does away with your fears. And how could I not sympathize with a fellow clarinet player? I was the cliché band geek myself. And even though I got out before hitting high school (and marching band), I have always had a soft spot for my band geek clarinet girl counterparts in literature. That's part of why I enjoyed Lauren in Bloom so much. But Lennie's up against a whole mess of challenges I never faced. Like suddenly having the hots for my dead sister's boyfriend. And having him reciprocate in a seriously unhealthy way. But Nelson's almost rhythmic writing carries the reader through on a swirl of high notes and low and I sympathized with Lennie on so many levels by the time the song wound to a close. The zany characters and surprising humor sprinkled throughout the story played just the right counterpoint to the dirge of grief and regret that threaten to drown Lennie. With every fragment of memory she scrawled down on scraps of paper and the sides of coffee cups, my heart hurt for her. And with every encounter with the book's great lifesaver--Joe Fontaine--and her extremely likable grandmother and uncle, I wanted her to make it more. A favorite passage (one of many):

--

I find Gram, who is twirling around the living room with her sage wand like an overgrown fairy. I tell her that I'm sorry, but I don't feel well and need to go upstairs.
She stops mid-whirl. I know she senses trouble, but she says, "Okay, sweet pea." I apologize to everyone and say good night as nonchalantly as possible.
Joe follows me out of the room, and I decide it might be time to join a convent, just cloister up with the Sisters for awhile.
He touches my shoulder and I turn around to face him. "I hope what I said in the woods didn't freak you out or something . . . hope that's not why you're crashing . . ."
"No, no." His eyes are wide with worry. I add, "It made me pretty happy, actually." Which of course is true except for the slight problem that immediately after hearing his declaration, I made a date with my dead sister's boyfriend to do God knows what!
"Good." He brushes his thumb on my cheek, and again his tenderness startles me. "Because I'm going crazy, Lennie." Bat. Bat. Bat. And just like that, I'm going crazy too because I'm thinking Joe Fontaine is about to kiss me. Finally.
Forget the convent.
Let's get this out of the way: My previously nonexistent floozy-factor is blowing right off the charts.
"I didn't know you knew my name," I say.
"So much you don't know about me, Lennie." He smiles and takes his index finger and presses it to my lips, leaves it there until my heart lands on Jupiter: three seconds, then removes it, turns around, and heads back into the living room. Whoa--well, that was either the dorkiest or sexiest moment of my life, and I'm voting for sexy on account of my standing here dumbstruck and giddy, wondering if he did kiss me after all.
I am totally out of control.
I do not think this is how normal people mourn.

--

Geez, I love that last line. It's so pregnant with everything that's going on in that girl. A moving and delightful read and recommended for fans of Julia Hoban, Sonya Sones, and Lisa Ann Sandell.

A Note: THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE is been compared to Sarah Dessen's novels, but I've noticed several early reviews seem to indicate Dessen fans are not that enthused with the comparison. Whereas those of us who don't seem to connect with Dessen's work find Nelson's book both fresh and compelling. There are, of course, exceptions but I'm interested to see if this trend continues or if it's merely conjecture on my part.

Lennon "Lennie" Walker's world is shattered when Bailey, her older sister, best friend, and heart, dies at the young age of 19. Lost in a maelstrom of grief, she, her Gram, and her Uncle Big stumble through the ensuing weeks in a fog. Always the lesser star of the two sisters, Lennie doesn't know what to do with herself without her sister, by whom she was always defined. All she can do is write down bits of poetry on whatever scraps of paper or writing surface she can find, and fall into a tumultuous and grief-fueled relationship with Bailey's boyfriend, Toby, to her own horror and confusion.

And then Joe Fontaine comes into her life. Exuberant, joyful, positive Joe, half French and gorgeous, musical virtuoso. All of a sudden Lennie glimpses what it might feel like to be happy again. But will her reckless actions with Toby and her overwhelming sadness destroy the incredible love she and Joe could have?

This book has been bouncing around the blogosphere for some time now, so I decided to find out what all the fuss is about. And yes, it is excellently written, beautiful poetic prose with heartrending description and simile. I especially loved the poems Lennie writes and leaves wherever she thinks of the words she needs to release. That said, I found it slightly unbelievable that all of her thoughts are that graceful and elegant.

I think my biggest problem was that EVERYONE kept talking about this book's amazingness. I think I prepared myself to dislike it from the start because of all this hype (see Jamie's post on The Perpetual Page-Turner about the Hype Monster). It just didn't hit me like it did everyone else, though I was struck much more often toward the end by Lennie's pain than in the beginning. If this book does anything, it will most likely make you at least feel.

I was most struck by Lennie's observation that she will never stop mourning for her dead sister. She might lose a little bit of Bailey, but she will always love her and will therefore always grieve.

It is an exquisitely written book and I'm glad I read it. I just think I was prepared to not like it as much as everyone else.

Wow...wow, wow, wow...seriously, I just finished this book and I am sitting here wondering how long I should wait before reading it again. The perfect combination of love and heartbreak to the point that I don't know what prevails more, tears of sadness or the achingly sweet remembrance of first love.

Lennie has always been the companion pony to her sister Bailey's race horse. When Bailey dies suddenly while rehearsing the lead in Romeo and Juliet, Lennie is thrust into the spotlight. A normally reserved band geek who reads Wuthering Heights like a manifesto, Lennie is not prepared to deal with her grief

One of the many great things about this book is that in each chapter we get to read a poem of remembrance that Lennie has written about a Baily. A genius way to show us how close they were considering Baily has just died as the story begins. Lennie hides these little gems all over town as she is working through her grief.

Through out the story we find out why Lennie and Baily were living with Grams and their uncle Big. The mystery of why their mother left and how that has affected the entire family is just another deep and meaningful part of this story.

Lennie's connections to both Toby and Joe are both so heart wrenching realistic that I found myself smiling and laughing through the entire book! Arghhh it's just so good! Sometimes I swear I have a harder time writing about books that I truly loved because I don't even know where to start and what to write down so that you can really understand how great I think it is without giving too much away!

A truly beautiful, life-affirming story that will make you laugh, cry and leave you smiling :) I loved it! Best suited for 14 and up due to sexual references and minimal drug and alcohol use.

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson is an absolutely mesmerizing, remarkable story, beautifully written. Though a Young Adult novel, this book appeals to readers of all ages, because it dwells on the timeless themes of grief and love, and how the two interconnect. Through the voice of 17 year-old Lennie, Nelson dives deep into grief. She shows us how falling apart in grief mirrors falling apart in love: both the grief-stricken and the love-stricken have a madness about them, and can't resist surrendering to emotion. There is something so fresh and original and quirky about Lennie's character and the family that raised her, and it's impossible not to fall under their spell when reading The Sky is Elsewhere. Like the main character Lennie, book author Jandy Nelson is clearly a poet, in addition to being a young adult novelist. Nelson brings a poetic sensibility to every line on every page, leaving the reader with the feeling that there is a beauty in the world that even sorrow cannot dislodge.

Lennie has always been the companion pony to her older sister Bailey's thoroughbred. So when Bailey dies suddenly, Lennie feels lost, shut up in a house of grief that she can't leave, and plagued by memories and thoughts of "What if..." that she can't escape. There are two guys who make her life a little bearable: Toby, her sister's boyfriend and one of the only ones who understands what she's going through, and Joe Fountaine, a musical genius new to town that is able to distract her from her intense grief. But both make her feel guilty about moving on with her life, and will force her to somehow reconcile with her grief and learn to live without Bailey.

Stunning, gorgeous, exquisite...those are only a few words that can be used to describe Jandy Nelson's debut YA novel. The Sky is Everywhere starts out in a quirky, poetic way that will delight and entertain. The themes of loss and grief are deep and explored thoroughly, as well as forgiveness, betrayal, wanderlust, and of course, love. The many eccentric and authentic characters cause this novel to stand out, along with the dreamy and almost magical setting of California in the summertime. Add the poems and conversations that Lennie writes and leaves all over town and the many references to such classics as Wuthering Heights, and you have a deep novel that illustrates just how wonderful and confusing and painful life can be. Though it seems as though The Sky is Everywhere should have a dramatic climax in which some surprising twist is revealed, it never happens, keeping the plot realistic and the further illustrating the slow change that Lennie has experienced since the death of her sister. The Sky is Everywhere is a quiet, moving novel full of searing grief, simmering romance, and the more subtle nuances of life and love.

Cover Comments: This cover is beautiful! It caught my eye the moment I saw it six months ago, hanging on a wall in an office--my first thought was, "Whoa!" and my second thought was, "I MUST read that!" I love the colors and how nothing is quite perfectly symmetrical. The refractions of the light are a nice little touch, and the font of the title is fantastic. This is one stand-out book!

I'm a sucker for teen books and I often don't know why. Sure I read all the Twilight books, but I know they suck. They're completely engrossing, but they are BAD. This book is AWESOME (just read the other reviews for the actual story). The characters, story line, and situations are realistic and you actually care what happens to all the characters. It's really sad though, which is fine for me because I love sad art (paintings, music, books, etc.), but it ends on a generally upbeat note (bittersweet, really). The characters aren't super immature even though they're young and when they are, it's not too annoying, like it can be in a lot of other teen books. I think I can count the number of books I would give 5 stars on one hand and this one definitely makes the list. Very good read.

As a school librarian I had heard the buzz about Jandy Nelson's debut young adult novel, The Sky is Everywhere, and knew it would be a perfect companion for my road trip from Florida to New York. It did not disappoint me. I was so engaged that I completed the book by the time I reached North Carolina, our first stop. I loved Lennie and her emotional journey from younger sister to adulthood. The themes of loss of a loved one, sexual experimentation, and young love are dealt with delicately and need to be addressed in young adult literature. The beautiful writing is echoed in the poetry written by Lennie throughout the novel. In its heartfelt way we are lead to an understanding of this character and intensely feel her pain and confusion. This book is a must for the teen literature shelves. Share it with someone you love!

Up in redwood country a high school junior, Lennon Walker, tries to deal with the unexpected death of her sister Bails.

The beautiful country is described to a T, and we hear details of a intriguing country inn that keeps an outdoor bedroom for romantic vacationers in a forest glen, covering the bed and its hangings with tarp when it rains. Beautiful if impractical, this room intervenes in our ordinary understanding of what's inside and what's outside in the service of a higher realism. Lennie's grief is too strong for ordinary narration, so first time author Jandy Nelson breaks up the first person, diaristic account with replicas of Lennie's poems, scattered here and there throughout the text seemingly without reason or rhyme, though in a beautifully modulated final section we find out the reason behind the disrupted narrative.

Lennie comes from one of those Salinger-like families that has drenched itself in myth, like a late Eudora Welty. (No wonder Wuthering Heights is Lennie's favorite novel, the battling Earnshaws and Lintons have nothing on the people of Clover.) The remaining survivors are trying to live their lives in a simulacrum of real life, hollow because their central locus has gone--Bailey, the beautiful and glamorous racehorse sister, Behind that loss, a deeper and more puzzling loss, the disappearance of the mother, a phantom who walked away from her two baby girls because she was cursed with the Walker gene--she's a runner and she'll run away. That was all years ago, but somehow the grandmother cobbled together a living for the two girls and has raised them herself, keeping the mystery of Paige's disappearance a forbidding secret the girls dare not inquire into. It's a Gothic story disguised as a YA novel for girls, and it builds on Nelson's remarkably keen sense of time and place, grounded in detail and filled with the smells and sights of a spring and summer in Northern California forest country.

Lennie, a very literary young lady, names practically everything--like the Glass family did, remember? The bedroom she shared with Bailey is the Inner Pumpkin Sanctum. Her girlfriend Sarah's car is called "Ennui." The unfinished painting of Paige that haunts their country home, like the portrait of Rebecca in Manderley, is called, "the Half-Mom." Even Grandma's *laugh* has its own monicker, which only a sense of the twee prevents me from revealing here. It's the sort of thing that, like my dad used to say, if you like it, you'll get a lot of it here.

I haven't even described the central romantic triangle, but Lennie is symbolically given a choice between Eros and Thanatos. Her dead sister's boyfriend, Toby, is obviously not the proper guy for Lennie, but the two try to comfort each other and to her surprise she winds up in his arms, his shirt off, his boner thudding against her thigh. Bad Lennie! Happy go lucky musician Joe Fontaine represents life and possibility, and under his spell Lennie learns that perhaps Bailey had all too unconsciously been preventing her from fulfilling her own destiny, the way Virginia Woolf sometimes said that her own life began when her beloved father died.

The Sky is Everywhere is that rare thing, a book that gets better as it goes along, and a book that improves each time you read it. Like Sense and Sensibility, or I Capture the Castle, this story of two very different sisters has the power to enchant generations of readers and I predict a long life for it.