I'll Give You the Sun (Nelson)

I'll Give You the Sun 
Jandy Nelson, 2014
Penguin Young Readers
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780142425763


Summary
Winner, 2015 Michael L. Printz Award

A story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell

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. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 24, 1965
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A. Cornell University; M.F.A., Brown University; M.F.A., Vermont College
• Awards—Michael L. Printz Award
• Currently—lives in San Francisco


Jandy Nelson is an American writer for young adults and a literary agent.

She received a BA from Cornell, an MFA from Brown in poetry, and another MFA from Vermont College in writing for children and young adults. The Sky Is Everywhere is her first novel and was noted as one of YALSA's 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her second novel, I'll Give You The Sun, was published in June 2014 and won the 2015 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. Nelson lives in San Francisco.

At the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Nelson participated in panel discussions. She was on the panel "Young Adult Fiction: Teens and Turmoil" with Gayle Forman, Cynthia Kadohata and moderator Sonya Sones during the 2010 event. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/11/2015.)

Book Reviews
Bold, even breathtaking. You get the sense [the] characters are bursting through the words, breaking free of normal metaphors and constructions, jubilantly trying to rise up from the prison of language.... The book celebrates art’s capacity to heal, but it also shows us how we excavate meaning from the art we cherish, and how we find reflections of ourselves within it.... I’ll Give You The Sun is a dazzling mirror
Lauren Oliver - New York Times Book Review


I'll Give You the Sun is a daydream...otherworldly and mesmerizing.... Nelson's evocative language envelops one's imagination...an exquisite surrender to wonder and possibilities.
Boston Globe


[Nelson] has an electrifying facility with description, especially how her characters feel at a given moment...[Jude], Noah, and the fine cast of subsidiary characters...are most memorable for how they poignantly illustrate the most basic of human emotions—love, grief, shame, remorse, joy.
Chicago Tribune


This book is about many things: grief, sexuality, creativity, bravery, identity, guilt. But mostly it's about love. Be prepared with more tissues than you needed for The Fault in Our Stars, a chunky notebook to scribble down all the quotes and a handful of witty responses when people ask why you're chuckling to yourself in the corner. Because this book will make you realise how beautiful words can be.
Guardian (UK)


[These] viewpoints—Noah’s at 13 and 14, Jude's at 16—intersect in surprising ways, and eventually come together in a satisfying, if bittersweet, conclusion.... Young adults will learn they're not alone in navigating the emotional highs and lows of finding their identity; older readers will have moments of wistful recognition. I, for one, devoured this book.
Montreal Gazette


I'll Give You the Sun gives the word "intense" new meaning...a novel that makes you want to go out and skydive, but if you can read a novel like this now and then, you don't need to.
Newsday


This book is many things at once, all of them engrossing. It's a book where teenagers think in almost indulgently poetic language while still sounding genuinely adolescent. It's two separate but equally intoxicating love stories.... Most of all, it's the mystery of what happened to tear Noah and Jude apart, and what—if anything—can bring them back together again. (Guide to 2014's Great Reads)
NPR


Simply unforgettable.... If you’re looking for a book that’s deep and powerful and beautiful, look no further. You must read I’ll Give You The Sun (Top 12 Young Adult Books of 2014).
Lisa Parkin - Huffington Post


Both structurally virtuosic...and emotionally wrenching. That alone is a rare combination in literature, YA or otherwise. But then add in the characters.... This book is a rebuttal to anyone suggesting YA, because it tells stories of young people, is somehow of lesser stuff. I’ll Give You The Sun is literature. Full stop. In my opinion, it’s not just the best YA book of the year, but one of the best books of the year.
Gayle Forman - Parade


A blazing prismatic explosion of color.... I'll Give You the Sun is that rare, immersive teen novel: To read it is a coming-of-age experience in itself.
Entertainment Weekly


Ingeniously told from the alternating perspectives of its spunky twin protagonists, this (technically) young adult noel jubilantly holds its own against the fall's grown-up offerings, with dead-on insights about surviving youth—and family.
O Magazine


You'd think that we were plugging The Fault in Our Stars, but even that comparison might sell short I'll Give You the Sun.... [It's] planted firmly in the positive, making for a gravity-defying, life-affirming experience.
San Francisco Magazine


(Starred review.) Twins Noah and Jude are inseparable until misunderstandings, jealousies, and a major loss rip them apart.... Nelson’s novel brims with emotion (grief, longing, and love in particular) as Noah, Jude, and the broken individuals in their lives find ways to heal (14–up).
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) (Gr 9 Up) Resplendent.... Readers will forgive convenient coincidences because of the characters' in-depth development and the swoon-worthy romances. The novel's evocative exploration of sexuality, grief, and sibling relationships will ring true with teens. —Shelley Diaz
School Library Journal


An intricate and absorbing work of art emerges from the details of the interlaced sections. Few novels about twins capture so well the rewards and challenges...or the way in which people who have loved us remain in our minds after their deaths.
VOYA


(Starred review.) In an electric style evoking the highly visual imaginations of the young narrators, Nelson captures the fraught, antagonistic, yet deeply loving relationship Jude and Noah share.
Booklist


The novel is structurally brilliant, moving back and forth across timelines to reveal each teen's respective exhilaration and anguish.... Nelson's prose scintillates... dizzyingly visual.... Here's a narrative experience readers won't soon forget.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the author tells the story through the two voices of Noah and Jude and at two different ages, i.e. Noah at 13 and Jude at 16? What impact does this have on the development of the plot, our understanding of their characters and on the reader? What are the underpinning messages of the book?

2. "Love is only half the story" is the quote on the front cover of the book. What do you think this means and what do you think the other half of the story is?

3. Jude tells Oscar "I gave up practically the whole world for you. The sun, stars, ocean, trees, everything, I gave it all up for you" (p.365). What was she trying to express to him? What would you give up the sun for and why?

4. The book deals with the big themes in life—grief, sexuality, families, relationships and most of all love, in all its forms. Art is one of the central platforms for the expression of these themes. Discuss how the characters react to it, use it to bring meaning to their lives, make sense of the world around them, harness their creativity and ultimately help in their healing.

5. What did you think about the ending of the book—did it complete the story in a satisfying and believable way for the reader? How might it have ended differently? Write a different ending for the story and let a minor character narrate it.

6. In the book, the sculptor Guillermo Garcia is described as "the kind of man who walks into a room and all the walls fall down" (p.177). What does that mean and what does it tell you about him as a character? Can you think of any real people for whom this description might also fit?

7. When Noah is talking about his father, he says that he draws him "so big I can’t fit all of him on the page, so I leave off his head" (p.15). What does this say about Noah’s relationship with his dad? Does the reader get to know Dad’s character as well as the other characters and what impression does he leave on the reader?

8. At the beginning of the book, every time Jude and Noah played rock, scissors, paper, they always chose the same thing (p.25), whereas at the end of the book they chose differently (p.394). What does this say about their future lives and the relationship between them?

9. After the death of their mother and its aftermath, both twins change dramatically in their outlook, behaviour and personalities, each becoming something they are not. Why do you think this happens?

10. Which is your favourite character in the book and why? How do you feel the main characters deal with their grief and what impact does this have on the other?

11. Ghosts and the supernatural feature prominently throughout the story. How does the book manage to make Grandma Sweetwine, who is dead, such a real, solid character? Do you believe that it is the ghost of her mum that keeps breaking Jude’s sculptures and if so, why do you think she is doing it? What influence does the spirit of Oscar’s mum have?

12. Prophet the parrot and his "Where the hell is Ralph?" refrain is one of the humorous elements of the story. Why do you think the author included him and what part does he play?

Questions from Jandy

13.If you had your own "invisible museum" like Noah, what would some of your own portraits and self-portraits look like? In the same vein, if you had a "bible" of superstitions like Jude, what would some of the entries be?

14. The Michelangelo quote that comes up in the story, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free", is also in many ways a theme that runs through the book. I had the feeling when I was writing that the characters were each metaphorically trapped in stone prisons of their own makings. How would you describe the differing and/or similar "stone prisons" of Jude, Noah, Guillermo and Dad? How do each of them finally break free?

15. When Jude is in Oscar’s bedroom, she comes across an essay he wrote for an art history class called "The Ecstatic Impulse of the Artist". What do you think the essay was about? How do you think this idea might connect to the story and the characters, especially Noah? What do you think Guillermo means when he says to Jude, "I think maybe your brother is the ecstatic impulse." Further, what do you think Sandy means when he says artists wish with their hands? Lastly, what do you think Guillermo means when he says (implies) art can remake the world? Do you think it can?

16. This quote by the poet Rumi is one of four that begins the novel: "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there." Who meets in the field beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing? Do Noah and Jude? Noah and his father? Jude and her mother? Dianna and Benjamin? Discuss this quote as it pertains to the relationships in the novel.
(Questions written by Annie Everall, Authors Aloud UK, www.authorsalouduk.co.uk © 2015 .)

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