I start all of my review drafts with the Cannonball Read number because that used to be how we formatted our titles way back in Cannonball Read Four. So, Holy motherforking shirtballs everyone, I just typed CBR10 for the first time as relates to a review. Let’s do this!
I try to select my books carefully for the “big” reviews of the year, so while packing for holiday travel I grabbed my copy of I’ll Give You the Sun from my bedside table and tucked it into my backpack. The time was now: this book had been on my to read list for a couple years following an enthusiastic review from scootsa1000. Scoots’ review had stayed with me so well that a little less than a year ago I snagged myself a paperback copy at an independent bookstore I was killing time at because I knew, knew, knew that I was going to read it and want a copy to have. I rarely let myself buy books, but this one made the cut sight unseen. If you follow that link you’ll see that review is from 2015 and I said in my comment that it would be a few months before I read it… well it has been three years and I don’t know what took me so long, I could have fallen in love with these characters so much sooner
This is a lot of preamble to get to the point: if you like YA at all and haven’t read this book you should rectify that pretty quickly. Jandy Nelson has a way with world building and character development that insidiously sinks into you. During the first half of the novel I was thinking it was quite good and I would probably end up rating it 3.5-4 stars and have some really nice things to say about the characters and the plot, and the easy but satisfying mystery of the missing in-between years (our narrators trade off from either side of a two year gap where we know what happened, but we don’t know what really happened). Then, somewhere around page 200 I fell ecstatically in love with the characters, their ways of expressing themselves, the realness of their lived experience, and the sorrows they carried with them, both before and after the big tragedies.
Jandy Nelson describes her work as a story about artistic passion and pleasure, about the ecstatic impulse, and about split-aparts. It is also a work about self, and being firmly in this life, and also not. Its about solving big puzzles and putting the pieces back together. For me, it is also a fantastic look at family, siblings, and grief and what you use to pull yourself out of the darkness and find your authentic voice.
May we all be like Grandma Sweetwine: have our own bible of wisdom we have gathered and a relationship with the universe so personal that we feel comfortable calling god Clark Gable. Make a wish, take a chance, remake the world.
Wow, I’m so glad you finally had time for this one!
A word of warning…I hated hated hated hated hated Nelson’s other book and now I just don’t know how to feel.
I don’t really have any interest in going back to Nelson’s first book. I read a review somewhere that was emphatic that her writing was vastly improved in I’ll Give You the Stars compared to her debut, and honestly the story doesn’t grab me so I think I’ll wait for her third book to eventually be published.
Such a great book!
Excellent review! Your last paragraph especially makes my heart happy and excited. I have this book at the shop I work at but I haven’t read it, this makes me want to check it out. (Also I will never not love a Good Place gif!)
This hadn’t seemed like a book I would be into, but this sentence
“Jandy Nelson describes her work as a story about artistic passion and pleasure, about the ecstatic impulse, and about split-aparts.”
makes me want to reconsider . . .
See, your enthusiastic review had me going back to my CBR7 review to see what I thought of the book. I remember liking it, but having some problems with it too (mainly the divided narrative and the multiple narrators) and I’d be interested in seeing what I’d think of the book now.
I did the exact same thing! I remember liking it, but yes, according to my review I also had issues. I’m glad you loved it though, Katie!
I also had issues, so I completely understand. My biggest hiccup was the way love is portrayed as “destined” for teenage characters. It was enough of an eye roll to deduct a half star, but at the end I decided to round back up to five.