The Sky is Everywhere

The Sky is Everywhere
by Jandy Nelson
Young Adult Fiction
Pub date 3/9/10

I don't have time to write a book review. I really don't. However, I also didn't have time to start a book last night, lay awake until all hours reading it, wake up, devour it during my commute, read a few pages during recess and lunch, and finish it as soon as I got home, pushing a huge assessment and lesson plans to the wayside.

But I did all of those things.

The book is called The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, and if you are a human being (or similar) you should read it. It comes out tomorrow.

Fans of Sarah Dessen, Susane Colasanti, Stephenie Meyer, Maureen Johnson, John Green, and/or Sara Zarr will love this book. Fans of the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, clarinets, France, roses, Bea Arthur or other tall zany old women, California, boys, and/or poetry will love this book. It will make you laugh (out loud, on page 2), it will make you cry (very shortly thereafter), and it will make you shake your head and wonder WHAT ON EARTH the characters are smoking to make them so awesome and weird. (Unless you live in Berkeley. Then you might understand.)

The Sky is Everywhere is about an unorthodox family reeling from the death of one of its members. Lennie--named after John Lennon--has lost her older sister and best friend, Bailey. A clarinetist, poet, and self-acknowledged nerd, Lennie doesn't know who she is without her vibrant sister. Even the Lennie plant, which has always reflected Lennie's emotional state, seems to be dying. With the help of Bailey's self-destructive boyfriend, their pothead Uncle Big, their artist grandmother, and the new boy in town, Lennie begins to find herself. But she makes a pretty big mess along the way.

I experienced all the extremes of emotion in the pages of this book. It's been a long time since a book has taken me for a ride like this one did.