The Sky is Everywhere - Jandy Nelson

I am in the group 'Addicted to YA' on Goodreads, and since this was one of their books of the month for February, I pushed this book to the top of my to-read list. This was a bold move, considering I have so much to read for the upcoming UKYA Extravaganza, but I really liked the idea of reading something at the same time as a lot of other people.

When Bailey Walker dies, she leaves behind a lot of heartbreak. Her sister Lennie, her boyfriend Toby, her Gram and her Uncle Big. In their grief, none of them know what to do, and Lennie finds herself turning to Toby for comfort, as well as the new boy, Joe Fontaine, a fellow musician who is separate from her life before Bailey's death.

Joe teaches Lennie that you can let your hurt out through your music, and this is something that a lot of people do, with many different art forms, and is something that I really admire. I thought it added a lot to the book and I really enjoyed their relationship.

For the majority of the book, I didn't like Lennie. I feel really bad admitting it, but she was just too self-centred for my liking, and couldn't see past her own grief and heartbreak to see that her family were hurting too, and needed her to help them through.

This was intentional, as we see a lot of character development on Lennie's part towards the end of the book, but by this point she had hurt too many people for me to change my mind about her, and I feel really bad about that. I could like her a little more after that, but not entirely.

This book, despite its themes of death and bereavement, was really funny in places. Uncle Big likes to go up into trees, has had five marriages, and tries to resurrect bugs. Lennie finds herself becoming horny for pretty much any boy she encounters, and coins the word 'dildonic' to mean lamer than lame, which I really liked. And Gram came out with my favourite quote of the book: 'if only I had wheels on my ass, I'd be a trolley cart.'

But there is another theme to this book and its abandonment. Lennie and Bailey were abandoned by their mother, who left and never came back. Gram raised them, and assured them she'd come back. But even if she did come back, she would return to one less child than when she left, and Lennie wants to know what kind of person would do that to her children. But she begins to discover the story is a lot more complicated than she thought...

The book has little poems scattered through it, which confused me at first, and I came up with my own theories as to what they might mean, but when it was revealed, I was actually so happy that it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I'm clearly not cut out to be a writer, as I can almost never guess the plots of books. 

I was considering giving this book a low rating, because I didn't like Lennie, whose perspective the book is solely told from. But all the other characters were so weird and wonderful, and I didn't completely hate Lennie by the end of the book. The ending made me so happy that I didn't want my initial dislike of the main character to take away from what was a really good read.

Verdict: 4/5 :)

P.s. I'm also really excited to read Jandy's next book, which is called I'll Give You The Sun, which comes out on March 19th. (My papa's birthday and two days before my own!)