The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Lennie Walker is grieving. Her older sister, Bailey, died suddenly of a heart condition and Lennie is suffering in isolation. She's shut out everyone important in her life; her grandma, her uncle and her best friend, Sarah. Her only outlet is the poems that she writes on scraps of paper and scatters around town. Not even her formerly beloved clarinet playing produces relief. Then she connects with Thoby, Bailey's boyfriend. Though she finds strange comfort in him she can't deny her feelings for the new boy in school. Joe Fontaine is French, gorgeous and a musician, like her. She doesn't want to abandon Thoby, but how can she resist Joe?



The Sky is Everywhere is written in an endearing contemporary style, yet it is disjointed and I didn't enjoy it. The author tosses almost every cliche of young adult fiction into the pot, mixes it up and produces a tedious and frustrating plot. Her 17-year-old characters sound like 40-year-olds and her adult characters are juvenile. Her dialogue is similar to that of TV shows like Glee and Gossip Girl. It is undeniably clever, but it gets old. This works well for a teen audience, but from an adult perspective it's too forced. I also didn't care for the foul language and frank crudity of some scenes. I read this novel for the Printz challenge. I don't think it will win.