Jandy Nelson and some of her writing

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Jandy Nelson, is a Literary agent, a published poet, and a novelist. A couple of her books include, The sky is everywhere and I’ll give you the sun. These are her first and second novels. I'll give you the Sun won a Printz award. She has a BA from Cornell and an MFA from Brown. She has three brothers, Bruce, Bobby and Andy and she lives in California, which is the setting for the two a fore mentioned novels.

Her first novel, The sky is everywhere is about a girl named Lennie walker who plays the clarinet deftly and has read Wuthering heights, 23 times. She has a grandmother who is an extremely skillful botanist and who only paints with green paint, an uncle with a large mustache who keeps trying to resurrect dead plants and insects, a quirky best friend, and a sister who recently died. Throughout Lennie’s life, Lennie and Bailey have been extremely close, with Bailey full of life and zeal, and Lennie picturing herself as more of a comfort pony. However, with Bailey's death, Lennie is thrown into a grief stricken state filled with sadness and confusion. When she returns to school almost everybody sees her differently and her inability to reach out to her best friend strains their friendship. She also meets a new boy named Joe, who attempts to reach out to her at school, but fails. The only person that can seem to ease the pain of Bailey’s passing is the person who seems to be about as broken as Lennie,Toby, but Toby was Bailey’s ex lover. As school ends, Joe starts to come over to Lennie’s house, where he befriends Lennie’s uncle and grandma, but as Lennie starts to fall for Joe, she can not get over Toby. 

Her second novel, I’ll give you the sun, is about and narrated by two twins, Noah and Jude, who were once extremely close, but due to difficult circumstances barely talk. Noah’s narrative is about the past, where he drew frequently, and his main friends were his artistic mom and his charismatic sister who keeps getting more distant. Thus, Noah set his sights on trying to get into a school dedicated to art. Then, his neighbor, Brian arrived. Brian is an expert pitcher who loves astronomy, and soon, Noah’s friend. However, as Noah and Brian become closer, Noah starts to fall in love with Brian. Meanwhile Jude keeps growing more prone to the stereotypical characteristics of a flippant beach girl and her relationship with her mom keeps getting worse.

In the present, the once outgoing and daredevil Jude, is now quiet and keeps to herself. She attends the school that Noah so desperately wanted and tried to get accepted in to, but she does not fit in well and all her projects keep mysteriously breaking. She believes this is because the ghost of her mother is angry with her. However, the ghost of her grandmother keeps her company like an imaginary friend in the way that no one can see her. Jude's failing grades spur her into trying to learn to sculpt as a way of extra credit and because she has something she wants to create that she does not want her mom to break. However, the only person who can teach her is a very intimidating retiree, who was once recognized as a master sculptor, but now sits in his studio and sculpts in fits of emotion galvanized by tragedy. She also meets a handsome and troubled Englishman who frequents the retiree’s studio and who she is sure she has seen before. Meanwhile, in the present, Noah, on the edge of despair, can not seem to stop jumping off the cliff he was once so afraid to vault from as the almost broken Jude, with her bible of superstitions that people have written, in hand, tries to put herself and her life back together. With each of their narratives the twins get closer and closer to explaining the reason for why they are no longer who they used to be.

I found these novels to be fairly similar. Both of them include the death of a loved one resulting in trauma for the teenage main character or characters. There is also a kind hearted, willful and superstitious grandma which helps the main character in some way. Although, in I’ll give you the sun she seems to be more imagined.The mother is also absent for most of the two stories and the main characters seem to have some sort of creative talent such as with Lennie being a good musician, Noah being a good painter and drawer, and Jude having her own artistic talent. However, in the sky is everywhere the characters' talents seem to be more musically included while in I’ll give you the sun, they seem to be more visually inclined. 

Throughout both stories there is some form of external literature whose sections are present throughout the story. For I’ll give you the sun, this literature is possessed by Jude in the form of the bible that her grandmother gave her. In this bible many strangers had written some of their superstitions. Sections of this are present throughout the chapters as Jude tries to use these superstitions as a way to navigate her new world and try to control her future to some degree. In The sky is everywhere, the literature is present in the little poems and tidbits of Lennie's life that she writes on random objects and walls. These poems usually depict present dilemmas and memories which are mostly of her sister. I also think she uses these poems as a way of coping with the loss of her sister. 

Given the author’s past as a poet I think it makes sense that she might incorporate poetry in her novel. Also, finding her way of including poetry quite creative and the poetry considerably splendiferous, I really looked forward to reading these every chapter. 

 Overall, I think that one of the main similarities is how well written the books are. She uses an abundance of illustrious metaphors and her writing flows undeniably well. I also found the content to be quite interesting. I thought she did a marvelous job of keeping the reader in suspense and interested, so overall I think she is simply a magnificent writer. I would give these books a solid 9.5 out of ten because both did contain some scenes which may be deemed “inappropriate”and I can be a fairly persnickety critic. However, I enjoyed reading them immensely and would highly recommend them.