The Sky Is Everywhere

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jandy Nelson is a brilliant writer. This story was written in a beautiful, almost poetic way. On the other hand, I am not a big fan of the plot.

This book revolves around Lennie Walker who has survived the death of an older sister, Bailey. During her time of grief, she felt guilty about being in love and living her life knowing that Bailey will never experience that nor will she ever share moments with her again.

The thing that disappointed me about the plot in the initial up to middle part of the book is the way Lennie reminded me of Bella from the Twilight series. She was torn between two guys-- her sister's fiancé, Toby, who started getting sexually attracted to her, and a new boy/heartthrob in town, Joe. This part of the story made me decide to remove one star from this review.

I mean, if the quote below can describe how she felt with Joe, I don't understand why she still got confused:
"I've always been into the Big Bang theory of passion, but as something theoretical, something that happens in books that you can close and put back on a shelf, something that I might secretly want bad but can't imagine ever happening to me."

Well, my father passed away last year and it didn't make me want to have sex with anyone who totally understood how I felt. I wanted to stop reading, but I thought I'd give this a chance. I also would have given this one or two stars, but the end part redeemed it. I like the way Lennie began to focus on her family-- her Gram, her uncle Big and her "lost" mother, Paige. I appreciate this part when she started to open up and realize how selfish she has become.

This part got me a bit emotional:
"My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy."

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