After hesitating to read it, Angela K. Sherrill, children’s book buyer at Chicago’s 57th Street Books, is won over by a spring YA novel.
Many booksellers have probably already read The Sky Is Everywhere (Dial, March), as it’s slated for the Spring 2010 Indie Next List. Those who haven’t should definitely get started. My Penguin rep enthusiastically recommended this teen debut by literary agent Nelson, both in person and with a “Must Read! sticker on its cover. But seeing the billowing heart on the jacket and knowing the main character had just lost her sister, I set it aside for a few weeks, thinking it would be another fluffy, romantic drama and I could probably get by without reading it. As other bookseller recommendations started coming in, I decided to come back to it, and I’m glad I did.
I’m usually a pretty cynical YA reader and I started the novel with certain phrases going through my head: “Oh, no, another dead-teen book,” “Guess what? She likes poetry,” and “Here comes the cute (and musically talented) boy to turn everything upside down.” But despite some clichés, it was special. Nelson carefully guides readers through stages of grief, recovery, and self-discovery that are everything but what you might expect. The grief is complex, the recovery is riddled with cringing missteps, and the self-discovery is brutal, practical, and challenging.
At some point, I began crying along with the characters, or for them—I’m not sure which. It wasn’t until I had tears streaming down my face that I overruled my presupposition that this was just another romantic teen drama. As I continued to turn the pages of my now tear-crumpled copy, I realized that this story, though melodramatic, is one of the freshest I’ve read in a seemingly tired genre.
The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson. Dial, $17.99 Mar. ISBN 978-0-8037-3495-1
