The Sky is Everywhere - Jandy Nelson (best book of the month)

RTW (Road Trip Wednesday): Best Book of the Month - hosted by YA Highway. (go there to check out other YA-er's fave reads this month and participate by writing your own post and linking in.)

How cute is this trailer!!! Love love love :)



I just loved this book so much I don't even know where to begin...

Maybe with the back blurb?:

What's wrong with me? 
What kind of girl wants to kiss every boy at a funeral, wants to maul a guy in a tree after making out with her (dead) sister's boyfriend the previous night? 
Speaking of which, what kind of girl makes out with her sister's boyfriend at all?
Lennie Walker - sisterless, lasagne maker, Heathcliff-obssessed and hopelessly in love...




So I saw a fair few raves about this and, had just come out of a bit of a binge read of grief-type books, so I thought I wasn't in the mood for another one... somehow, (I think partly the cute trailer), I caved.

But this book, IMO, is in a whole league of it's own.

The writing is intensely beautiful. Oh - I did some serious sentence-crushing. Reading this was like being submerged in emotion and love and all things wild and mad and crazy and the grief was just so poignant and the feelings so real that I became completely absorbed.

The love story.

Whoah.

So, there's this kinda love triangle. By that I mean, two guys, both getting some action from Lennie. But it's not an ordinary love triangle or cliché - to the point that even saying triangle somehow feels wrong.... it's like the characters are so fused with emotion that it bubbles over and explodes in love and moments of passion. The complications in this didn't feel like a contrived plot point, but like a real character driven mess of pain and desire and world-crushing love. I also didn't think it was a manipulative device to tear up readers, and there's no choosing of teams, just an ache for Lennie and Joe and Toby.

And the love between Lennie and one of her men. It's intense, and an all the way full-blown connection, more so than most YA I read. However, due to the stunning writing, I was into it the whole way. I believed in it, for sure :) Sigh...

I was so into the love scenes but in the midst of it, a little knot of tension was gnawing away in the pit of my stomach the whole time. Takes a talented author to get to me like that.

Basically, this book hit me hard emotionally.

The book itself? It. Is. Stunning.

The paperback isn't really a paperback, it's like the material on those funky little Bibles - if you know what I mean :) - and the pages are bound, and inter-spliced throughout are little hand-written poems on full colour pages (some carved into tree bark, on music scores, on a takeaway cup). You see some of these pages when you watch the trailer above - all photos from the actual book. Tell me you watched the trailer, yeah?

I haven't said much about the actual plot - it's best if you just get in and read it. I don't know if my review has really done this book justice..?

I was so inspired/wowed/stunned/in love after reading this that I ordered three more copies and sent them out to three of my Aussie buddies - couldn't help but share the love. I haven't told them yet... (unless it's you and you're reading this post...fingers crossed, hey?) And they better love it as much as I do! ;)

What's the best book you read this month?

Loving Author Kaitlin Ward's Aussie YA Pick for this month :)

Oh - and watch the trailer. Seriously.