Characters, Setting and Conflict

Noah and Jude, artistic teenage twins who live in California. This book, I’ll Give You The Sun is narrated by Noah and Jude. Two narratives are talked about the death of their mother and one of the twin’s acceptance into an excellent art school. Noah talks about how close his sister and him were and how they were always competitive and the game of domination (age 13.) Jude talks about her story at the age of 16. Her and her brother grew apart by their mother’s death and not having a motherless family.

There are many conflict throughout the story. But, in the story I would say the biggest conflict of all would be family issues. Yes, family relationships can be complicated. Since, Noah and Jude have a love/hate relationship with competition and compassion of being an artist. The biggest conflict is that both Noah and Jude have trouble connects with their parents. With these troubles, their parents had their own lives, personalities, their own conflicts that were happening with themselves. They also had regret in their lives.

“She’s having an affair. She’s cheating on Dad. She’s a two-timer. A toilet-licking asshat liar. Mom! How could this not have occurred to me? But it didn’t occur to me exactly because she’s Mom. My mother wouldn’t do anything like this. She brings donuts-the best donuts I ever tasted- for the toll collectors. She doesn’t have affairs.”

 

Complexity, Theme and Book Structure

 

Complicity: An artist who is 13 years old, shy, awkward, and barley talks. In each section of Noah’s side of the story. He likes to pause and describe an idea painting, title and an image that he creates within his mind. He spends all of his time drawing.

Example:) “After a while, having gotten no response as usual, I take out the charcoals from my back pocket. They somehow survived the ordeal intact.  Sit down and open my sketchbook. I black out a whole blank page, then another, and another. I press so hard, I break stick after stick, using each one down to the very nub, so it’s like the blackness coming out of my finger, out of me, and onto the page. I fill up the whole rest of the pad. It takes hours. ( A Series: Boy Inside a Box of Darkness)”

 Jude is also an artist, 16 who is beautiful, popular and likes the social. She is very confident, talkative and if she has time she surfs and cliff dives.

Theme: Coming Of Age

Book Structure: I honestly love the book structure of this book. It gives me more interest into the book instead of it having it a as a chapter with a title in it.

This book is splits into two different timelines- one when they’re thirteen/fourteen years old and the other when they’re sixteen. It’s told in first person alternating back and forth from the twins perspective. In Noah’s section age 13 talks about relationships, betraying one another and breaking the bonding of Jude and himself as they become adolescence. Jude’s section beings when they’re sixteen. She tells how her, Noah and her family reconnect. On the top of each section of the story, there is a larger text to tell what it’s mostly going to

Hooking the Readers

 

 

Reminder—I’m only using a chapter in this book to give the readers the explaining of hooking them.

 In I’ll Give You The Sun, the author Jandy Nelson starts off “hooking” the readers by having Noah telling his story on how it started. First off, Nelson incorporated bullies name Zephyr and Fry who pick on Noah.   The quote “With Zephyr and Fry- reigning neighborhood sociopaths- torpedoing after me and the whole forest floor shaking under my feet as I blast through air, trees this white-hot panic.” This helps the readers wonder what had happen to Noah and what made Zephyr and Fry do this to him. Also, it makes the reader continue to read.  Another quote Nelson uses to get the reader’s attention is “Then Zephyr’s on me, has one, both of my arms behind my back and Fry’s grabbed my sketchpad. I lunge for it but I’m armless, helpless. I try to wiggle out of Zephyr’s grasp. Can’t. Try to blink them into moths. No. They’re still themselves: fifteen-foot-tall, tenth grade asshats who toss living, breathing thirteen-year old people like me over cliffs for kicks.” This shows that Noah’s story has a lot of conflict in his story. I mean, who doesn’t love some drama in a chapter or even in a story. Nelson also use capitalization and puts words or a sentence in the beginning of the story and makes the text of it larger. Here’s an example,” This is how it all begins.” This helps the readers know what part of the story they are at.

 

Book Choice

 

 

The book I chose is called, I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson. As I was searching for a Printz Award Winning book, I decided to look for a book from the Michael L. Printz Award which is recognize for “best book written for teens.” As I was looking through the website, I came across the books, I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson. This book is the award winning book of 2015. There were other books nominated as Honor books such as, And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard, The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley, Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith, and This One Summer by Mariko Tamaski. Out of all of the books I chose the one by Jandy Nelson. By looking and reading the summary, it made interest to me to read it. Further alone searching and wanting to know more about it. I searched up some reviews from the author’s website to see if other people really enjoyed this book.

Here are some reviews I found:

“This one is going to be big… it is full of all the good stuff that sticks with you: love, identity struggles, loss, betrayal, and the complications of family, so you’ll.. . feel all the feels.” - Bustle

“This is a beautifully written story” – BookPage

“An extraordinary book! I’ve never read anything like it. Lyrical-unique-passionate-magical-tragic-hopeful-Nelson’s characters will fly off the page and into your heart.”-Nancy Garden, author of Annie in My Mind

“This is a stunning, artfully woven story. My heart burst open at the blazing unforgettable end. Magnificent.” – Nova Ren Suma, author of Imaginary Girls and 17 & Gone

http://jandynelson.com/reviews/ill-give-you-the-sun/

Who Would I Recommend This Book To?

I would recommend this book to any young adults and any older adults about the age of 14 and up. I say these ages because I don’t think kids in middle school would be able to understand what’s going on in the book and the sexuality of Noah.  

Reasons Why You Shoud Read It!

Who likes to read easy books instead of long, big books? I know I do.

I'm here to give my opinion on this book..
1. It's written very well.
2. It's an easy read.
3. I would recommend this book, if you love mysteries!
4. You won't be able to put it down.
5. It's a "oh my gosh" feeling.
6. Keeps you interested.
And finally #7..
It opens your eyes by the things that are happening through out the book.

If you have yes to any of these, I would totally recommend this book! 

Tapes.

Hello! You're probably wondering about this book. Hannah makes these tapes for everyone.  (As you know). You're probably wondering if you could hear these tapes for yourself. Actually.. there is a website where you hear them! You can hear ALL 13 tapes that she made and you could probably (maybe) put yourself in the situation and see how it feels.. or maybe you won't be able to.

Here's a link to the website for these tapes! Happy Reading And Listening! (:
http://www.thirteenreasonswhy.com/hannahsreasons.html

Thirteen Reasons Why Theme.

There are many, many themes for this book. The theme I chose was We are responsible for our own actions. I chose this theme because in the book Hannah killed herself and didn't hurt anyone else but her. There would've been many reasons that cause her decision. It wasn't anyone's decisions it was hers.

Quotes:
"You don't know what's goes on in anyone's life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person's life, you're not messing with just that part . Unfortunately, you can't be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person's life, you're messing with their entire life. Everything... affects everything." (201-202)

"No matter what I've said so far, no matter who I've spoken of, it all comes back to- it all ends with-me." (253)