The Sky Is Everywhere

Lennie's older sister Bailey died suddenly at age 19, leaving a grief-stricken younger sister, grandmother, uncle, and boyfriend behind. Unable to cope, Lennie takes to scribbling poems and memories on scraps of paper or trash and burying them around town or in the garden or woods, and she and Bailey's boyfriend Toby turn to each other for comfort. Though she knows it's wrong, Lennie also thinks that Toby is the only other person who understands her grief.

Though Bailey's death was devastating, it has also broken Lennie open to be herself in the world, not just Bailey's shadow. A new boy in school, Joe, falls in love with the new Lennie - crazy sad, musical, beautiful - and Lennie is torn between Toby and Joe.

Set in the same Northern show more California setting as I'll Give You the Sun, The Sky is Everywhere also shares its offbeat culture, unusual family arrangements, honoring of art and music, and closeness with the natural world. And, of course, there are some pretty top-notch kissing scenes. Ultimately, Lennie faces the question of how to build her own identity, even as she manages (or, sometimes, doesn't manage) her grief.

Quotes

What are we going to do with all this love? (Lennie and Toby, 31)

Grief is a house that disappears / each time someone knocks at the door / or rings the bell (fragment of Lennie's poem, 73)

When I'm with him, / there is someone with me / in my house of grief, / someone who knows / its architecture as I do... (Lennie's poem, 80)

But what if music is what escapes when a heart breaks? (86)

I told him I was looking at the sky. He said, "That's a misconception, Lennie, the sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet." (Uncle Big, 117)

How can the cost of this change in me be so great? It doesn't seem right that anything good should come out of Bailey's death. (144-145)

We can't keep wrapping our arms around a ghost. (148)

I heard this expression once: Each time someone dies, a library burns. I'm watching it burn right to the ground. (152)

How will I survive this missing? How do others do it? (168)

This is our story to tell. ...I've never once thought about the interpretative, the storytelling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever. (185)

...missing her, missing the girl I used to be around her, missing who we all used to be. We will never be those people again. She took them all with her. (208)

I try to fend off the oceanic sadness, but I can't. It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be enchanted by what was. (275) show less

With the unexpected death of her sister, Lennie’s drowning in grief, it pulls her away from a friend, it isolates her from her grandmother, and it makes a mess of her love life.

The most obviously contentious thing about this book is an inappropriate relationship which will be challenging for some readers to get past, understandably so. I definitely didn’t enjoy those scenes but it isn’t like Lennie enjoys them either, it’s the rock bottom of her grieving process and I feel like the author did a really good job of explaining why those moments happened, conveying the emotional turmoil these two people are in, how utterly lost they are.

When it comes to the actual romance in the novel, I loved Lennie and Joe’s tortured show more chemistry, there’s a bigness and a poetry to their feelings that might be a bit much for some, but he’s an emo musician and she does write poetry (in addition to also being a musician), and for both of them it’s really their first time being (to borrow from Beyonce) drunk in love, so I thought the way it was told suited them.

The way Lennie’s entire story is told is really what stood out to me most, although it may not be for everyone. I loved the way the whole thing is tinged if not overflowing with sadness yet there’s this sort of whimsy to the storytelling as well, with Lennie’s poems written on any and every surface, the taste of ashes in grandma’s cooking, characters hanging about in trees, the plant echoing Lennie’s state of mind, etc. I also loved the originality, several times there were descriptions that seemed so unusual and unexpected yet at the same time, they’re somehow perfectly true, capturing the moment, capturing the feeling. show less

Lennie, 17, lost her older sister four weeks ago, when Bailey died unexpectedly from a heart arrhythmia. The girls were especially close because their mother had abandoned them when Lennie was one, and they were raised by their grandmother and uncle. But their relationship was never equal; Bailey was the lead star, the race horse, and Lennie played the “companion pony,” “the side-kick sister, tucked into a corner of her shadow.” Lennie thought she was happy that way.

Now that a month has passed, it is time for Lennie to return to school. She hasn't been in touch with her friends; she has withdrawn from everyone, communicating only with her dead sister by leaving small notes and poems all around for Bailey perhaps to see from show more Heaven. But unexpectedly upon returning to school, hormones kick in for Lennie, and they do so with a vengeance. Lennie finds herself dealing with two attractions at once: her sister’s boyfriend Toby, and a new guy in school, Joe, who not only plays music with abandon and passion and courage, but has a personality to match, and a smile as big as the sun.

When Toby and Lennie are together, they feel like she somehow they are getting Bailey back. Lennie reflects:

"Bailey loved both Toby and so much - he and I almost make up her whole heart, and maybe that’s it, what we were trying to do by being together, maybe we were trying to put her heart back together again.”

Then there’s Joe, who makes Lennie feel joy, and like she wants to be alive. But this feels like a betrayal to Bailey:

"I don’t believe time heals. I don’t want it to. If I heal, doesn’t that mean I’ve accepted the world without her?”

Lennie, her family, and Toby, have to learn how to grieve and how to heal, and Joe has to decide if he can accept their choices.

Evaluation: Though the plot sounds like a very ordinary coming-of-age story, in fact this book is extraordinarily well done. It is full of poetry and music, passion and compassion, and endearing episodes of teenage angst and humor. This author is terrific, and the writing is exceptional. It is not a depressing book; rather, it is an exuberantly told story of self-discovery, renewal, and an affirmation of life. show less

Ever since the sudden, tragic death of her sister Bailey, Lennie has basically shut down. She doesn't talk to anyone, not even her best friend or her grandmother. Her only consolations are reading Wuthering Heights for the umpteenth time and writing poetry about her sister, which she leaves in bits and pieces all over town. A month after Bailey's death, Lennie returns to school and band practice on autopilot -- that is, until she meets the new kid, Joe, who is both an amazing musician and an impossibly handsome boy. Joe is a shock to her system, and her instant crush on him actually seems to be requited. But Lennie is struggling with several conflicting emotions, including fear and guilt that she is betraying Bailey by continuing to show more live her life. Then there's Bailey's boyfriend Toby, who is turning to Lennie to ease his grief because she's the only one who understands. As Lennie sorts out her complicated personal life, she also slowly begins to work through her grief.

I really loved Jandy Nelson's I'll Give You the Sun, so I had high expectations for this book. Unfortunately, I didn't love this one quite as much, although I still thought it was a good read. Much as Lennie annoyed me sometimes -- she spends a lot of the novel preoccupied by Joe and/or Toby -- her actions did seem realistic to me. The romance was ultimately very sweet, but my favorite part of the book was the portrayal of Lennie and Bailey's relationship. They're only a year apart, and they've always been very close, with Lennie looking up to Bailey as the older and more extroverted sister. But in the aftermath of Bailey's death, Lennie realizes that Bailey kept some secrets from her. She also learns that her admiration of Bailey has actually prevented her from following her own dreams, because she always felt that Bailey was the one who deserved the spotlight. I thought this relationship was very complex and interesting, and I'm glad Nelson spent so much time on it, although the romantic story was a little thinner as a result. Overall, I would still recommend this book, even though it didn't quite grab me in the same way that I'll Give You the Sun did. show less

17-year-old "Lennie" (short for Lennon, which I've decided I love as a first name) is still reeling from the recent unexpected death of her older sister, Bailey. As she struggles to come to terms with this, she finds that nothing is the same anymore: she's grown out of touch with her best friend, she's lost her ability & desire to play the clarinet, and she no longer wants to spend time with her grandmother or uncle, who she lives with. To complicate matters, there's a new guy at school, Joe, who everyone seems to be falling for, and Lennie is surprised to find that he is expressing interest in her. But hold on -- there's also Toby, Bailey's boyfriend, who is also mourning and is all of a sudden looking at Lennie in a different way. show more With all these different emotions fighting to break through, Lennie is understandably overwhelmed. Can she experience love while at the same time respectfully honor the memory of her sister?

This kind of sounds like a cliche'd young adult story, and maybe it is in some ways, but I really enjoyed it. I found that every time I put the book down, I wanted to pick it back up again. It's an emotional story, but also a quick & light read, with just enough quirkiness and humor to balance everything out. There were times I wanted to shake Lennie, but at other times I just wanted to give her a big hug. This was a great palette cleanser between some other heavier books I've read lately, and I was sad to see it end.

On a side note, a film adaptation was just released about a week ago on AppleTV. I watched that immediately after finishing the book and I wish I hadn't. It's hard to explain, but it ruined the magic of this book for me. It's as if they tried too hard to incorporate a certain amount of magical realism into the production, making the humor bits corny & unbelievable. It just didn't work for me. My advice is to stick with the book. show less

This book was devastatingly awesome. My heart broke and healed and broke again for Lennie. Lyrical prose, vivid secondary characters, and an awesome love interest...I want more from Jandy Nelson.

I have never read such beautiful words in my life. It's not about the plot with this story, it's how it's told. The words practically jump off the page and into your soul. You feel each characters emotions - their love, their loss, their unspeakable pain, their confusion - all of it. I've never "felt" a book as deeply as I felt this one. This is a story you will read over and over, picking up new pieces each time.