I'll Give You the Sun

Starred review from June 23, 2014
Twins Noah and Jude are inseparable until misunderstandings, jealousies, and a major loss rip them apart. Both are talented artists, and creating art plays a major role in their narratives. Both also struggle with their sexuality—Noah is gay, which both thrills and terrifies him, while Jude is recovering from a terrible first sexual experience at age 14, one of two important reasons she has sworn off dating. Nelson (The Sky Is Everywhere) unravels the twins’ stories in long chapters that alternate between their perspectives. Noah’s sections are set when the twins are 13, Jude’s at age 16, giving readers slanted insights into how their relationship deteriorated and how it begins to mend. The twins’ artistic passions and viewpoints suffuse their distinctive voices; Noah tends toward wild, dramatic overstatements, and Jude’s world is wrapped up in her late grandmother’s quirky superstitions and truisms. Readers are meant to feel big things, and they will—Nelson’s novel brims with emotion (grief, longing, and love in particular) as Noah, Jude, and the broken individuals in their lives find ways to heal. Ages 14–up. Agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties.

February 23, 2015
This engrossing coming-of-age novel of artistic twins Noah and Jude unfolds in an unusual way: the twins tell the story in alternating first-person chapters, but Noah's chapters take place when they're 13, and Jude's take place three years later, at age 16. In the intervening years, a tragedy has occurred, tangled up in a messy web of betrayals, lies, and secrets, which gradually reveal themselves. Bernstein and Whelan are both excellent narrators. As 13-year-old Noah, Bernstein conveys all the yearning, hope, and insecurity of an adolescent boy: the swooning highs and crushing heartbreak of first love, the worry of hiding the fact that he's gay, the need for parental approval, the fear of bullies, and the hope of getting into a prestigious arts school. Whelan's chapters take place in the aftermath of the tragedy and estrangement of the twins, and in her voice we hear all of Jude's self-loathing, guilt, and bitterness, and the hard shell she has constructed to shut out the world. Whelan is also pitch-perfect at voicing an English ex-junkie trying to put his life together. She can't quite manage a Spanish accent for the reclusive middle-aged artist whom Jude wants to be her mentor (the accent she attempts almost sounds Russian), but she does bring out his colorful personality: a fierce, passionate, desperate, eccentric artistic genius. This emotionally nuanced rendition of a memorable novel is highly recommended. Ages 14âup. A Dial hardcover.