Today I have to pleasure to host the wonderful and fantastic Jandy Nelson during her Blog Tour for her newest and most awesome release of I’ll Give You the Sun, which I reviewed last week and loved it SO BAD!
I got the chance to chat with Jandy a little bit so please welcome Jandy Nelson!
Jandy, thank you so much for stopping by today! I met you at BEA this year and I asked you if I’m going to cry when reading “I’ll Give You The Sun” and you said “Probably”. Well, now that I’ve read it, I can tell, that yes indeed I cried quite a bit!
Do you like making your Readers cry?
Ha! It was great meeting you at BEA and I remember when you asked me that. And sorry you cried! And yes, honestly, happy too. I think most writers want readers to “feel” their stories at a visceral/emotional level, want readers to get right inside the characters and experience the ups and downs of the story through the narrators’ hearts, minds and senses. I know that’s what I want as a reader. I want to step into someone else’s life, someone else’s world, someone else’s love story and family and friendships, their struggles as well as their triumphs. So, I guess if I’m going to be honest, I definitely do want to make readers cry. But I also want to make them laugh! Hard! And fall in love! And be angry! And be so joyful! And everything. As a reader, I want to feel the gamut of what it is to be alive in the books I read. And as a writer, I guess, I think that’s the goal as well.
Noah and Jude are so different, yet so similar – if you’d list one similar character trait they both possess and one that makes each unique, what would it be?
I think both Noah and Jude have extremely passionate natures but it manifests differently in each of them. Noah’s emotions run really high. He’s dramatic and over-the-top and sees both his inner and outer worlds in explosive color. Jude is passionate as well but her passion manifests more physically. She’s a daredevil, likes to surf and cliff-dive and take risks. But really, this describes the twins when they’re younger. For both of them, all this passion becomes buried over time due to certain events that occur and in many ways each of the twin’s trajectory is to find a way back to this passion, this essential part of themselves. I think in terms of uniqueness: Jude has a wryness about her, an ability to laugh at herself and the world that is her own. She’s much thicker-skinned than her brother. And one of Noah’s very unique qualities is his visual sensibility; his perception is rhapsodic, ebullient. He rockets right out of his skin on a regular basis.
Q: Art plays such an important role in “I’ll Give You The Sun” and for both Noah and Jude, is art also an constant in your life, or did you go and explore it specifically for “I’ll Give You The Sun”? I saw on your website, that you did a stone-carving class! How was that?
Art is definitely a constant in my life. I love it so much. Especially painting. I can spend days in museums or staring at art books or even just thinking about paintings I’ve seen. But I have no ability to paint at all. And yes, I took a stone-carving class! It was a total blast! Actually, literally: a blast. I had expected this very Michelangelo-esque type of scene, all of us tap-tap-taping away at our marble, but it’s nothing like that. We were outside in all types of weather, wearing protective gear that made us look like hazmat workers, using power drills and circular saws. It was butch and badass and so much fun. I learned a ton about Jude’s and Guillermo’s characters by taking the class. Also, by watching my teacher Barry Baldwin (an incredible stone carver), I truly saw what Michelangelo meant when he said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” It really was like Barry could see the form inside the rock and was just freeing it from the stone around it. (I’m a horrible carver by the way. It is unbelievably difficult. I’d come home with bruised and bleeding fingers every time!)
Thank you so much for chatting with me today – I absolutely adored “I’ll Give You The Sun” and it’s one of these books that will stay with you long after closing the last page… Thank you for writing this wonderment of a story!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the book! And thank you for having me!
About I’ll Give You The Sun
I’ll Give You the Sun
by Jandy Nelson (Website, Twitter)
Published by Dial Books on 2014-09-16
Genres: Death & Dying, Family, Love & Romance, Siblings, Social Issues, Young Adult
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Amazon • Goodreads 
A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell
Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah’s story to tell. The later years are Jude’s. What the twins don’t realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.
This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.
About Jandy Nelson
Jandy Nelson, like her characters in I’ll Give You the Sun, comes from a superstitious lot. She was tutored from a young age in the art of the four-leaf clover hunt; she knocks wood, throws salt, and carries charms in her pockets. Her debut novel, The Sky Is Everywhere, was on multiple Best Books of the Year lists, was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, earned numerous starred reviews, has been translated widely, and continues to enjoy great international success. Currently a full-time writer, Jandy lives and writes in San Francisco, California—not far from the settings ofThe Sky Is Everywhere and I’ll Give You the Sun. Visit her online at www.jandynelson.com or find her on twitter at @jandynelson.
Some fun to share!
Tour Schedule
Be sure to check out the rest of the blog tour, featuring guest posts, interviews, giveaways, and more!
- Sept. 1 – Cuddlebuggery
- Sept. 2 – Novel Sounds
- Sept. 3 – Perpetual Page Turner
- Sept. 4 – Forever Young Adult
- Sept. 8 – The Young Folks
- Sept. 9 – The Book Hookup
- Sept. 10 – Grown Up Fangirl
- Sept. 11 – Bewitched Bookworms – Today!
- Sept. 15 – Candace’s Book Blog
- Sept. 16 – Novel Novice
- Sept. 17 – Alice Marvels
- Sept. 18 – Icey Books
- Sept. 22 – The Midnight Garden
- Sept. 23 – The Starry-Eyed Revue
- Sept. 24 – Tales of a Ravenous Reader
- Sept. 25 – Katie’s Book Blog
- Sept. 29 –GReads!
- Sept. 30 –Anna Reads
Make sure to enter the Tourwide Giveaway for a chance to win a copy of The Sky is Everywhere!
Danny’s Thoughts of Love
I already reviewed I’ll Give You the Sun and LOVED it so so much!
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson is a moving story about love, loss and an incredible moving bond between twins, that were once so close and now need to find their way to find the other half again. The writing is lyrical and beautiful and the way the story’s been told so unique and brilliant. I’ll Give You the Sun is a must read this year!
Got a question for Jandy? @PenguinTeen will be hosting a Twitter chat with Jandy Nelson, Stephanie Perkins, and Gayle Forman, time and date TK!
Pre-order your copy of I’ll Give You the Sun today! Want a signed / personalized copy? They’re available for pre-order from Books Inc.!
And, are you now even a little more excited about I’ll Give You the Sun? I absolutely adored the book and hope you are going to love it just as much as I did!
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You made me snort with your first question! Did you really ask her that at BEA? I love these answers and it just makes me want to read the story even more!! (How did I not get a copy at BEA? *sadface* Oh, well. I’ll just buy the sucker!)
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Yep, I totally and honestly did! I’m a big cryer and I love books that make me feel so much,so I wanted to be prepared:)) Really, the book is fantastic Mary, you need to check it out!!
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