I'll Give You the Sun - Book Review

This is not going to be a typical book review I should warn. I’m not good at finding literary techniques in anything that I read (apart from the basics) because I naturally just don’t look for them when I’m reading. When I read, I’m looking for an escape really (well with fiction at least) or to learn something more about myself, others or the world around me. So, with that in mind, here is my review. The last time I did a book review I wrote a summary of the book, but I personally feel that that is beside the point, so this time I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to dive right into why I loved this book.

I loved the last book I read of Jandy Nelson (The Sky is Everywhere) and I couldn’t wait to read some more of her works. So, I read this one. And it didn’t disappoint. I didn’t connect or see a bit of myself in any of these characters this time. I fell in love with the way she describes how her characters experience the world. How they see others in their lives. It’s imagination on paper. Imagination come to life literally. Colours, explosions, fantasies, things that you don’t see in the everyday. It was as if the twins were from a different planet. Sharing the world with each other, seeing it in ways that only they could see it. And I got a behind the scenes view.

It made me feel alive.

Alive, and more alert to looking for the beauty in everything, it made me want to do art again, to paint again, to draw again but this time from my mind's eye. When the pen and my body become one. When my mind's eye and paintbrush are one. It made me want to see the world in vivid colours. It made me want to see the artwork described in the book in all its beauty and glory. To meet every character and see just how beautiful they were with my own eyes. I wanted to see the words on the pages of this book come to life because their world was a world that was not the same as my own at all.

I hated the ending though, purely because I’d become so invested in the characters, in their journey, I just wanted to see where their lives continued on to. I wanted to see the final sculpture, to see where one of the twin’s relationships with another character went. To see if they ended up happy. To see if the twin’s dad made friends with their newly acquired art mentor (you’ll understand why if you read the book). And that's why I loved the ending. It left me remembering that you don’t always get to know the whole story. You don’t always have to.

I would definitely recommend that you get a copy of this book. I'll leave you a link here.

Happy readings!