The Sky Is Everywhere... Indeed

I was on a dry spell...of reading.No matter what book I picked,I couldn't go past the first few chapters.Impatient and restless,I longed to find a book that would transport me back to that oh-so-fantastic world of fiction.

I visited a book fair in my hometown yesterday and for the first time felt a lack of enthusiasm given the fact that around 30 unread new/old unread novels are lying around desolate in my room already.But then a bibliophile can never resist a deal that goes buy 3 books for 200!

I just finished reading The Sky Is Everywhere right now.And I can't wait to go back to it again.Lennie with her passionate emulation of Cathy of Wuthering Heights,Joe with his dorkiness and the ever present wild & fiery Bailey have taken over my heart.

This is a book with romance and love scenes and cheesy poetry thrown in.But also one that makes your heart beat aloud...or drown in inexplicable misery.You'd want to smile,be happy for Lennie,feel her guilt in your very bones and sob with her at night when you're sleeping alone.

I have always been a fan of thrillers or science fiction, having zero tolerance for the crap they print these days in the name of romance.Jandy Nelson has however managed to gift me,a romantic at heart,a rather wonderful piece of art with this book.

The story revolves around Lennie, 17 and a Wuthering Heights fanatic. A second chair clarinettist who prefers to remain in the shadows and doesn't mind feeling like a baked potato. Everything changes when her older sister Bailey dies,leaving her grieving,devastated and confused.As luck would have it,Lennie's hormones decide this is the time to make their presence known and what happens next is a series of passionate misadventures followed by confusing emotions and a I-am-such-a-slut feeling.

Her eccentric family which comprises of a loud and boisterous Gram who likes to wear flowery dresses,has green fingers and paints green women and a  five timed divorced giant of an uncle Big who is almost always stoned, provide a perfect backdrop to Lennie's rather tumultous life.

When Joe from France comes into her life,all he does is add more fuel to the fire raging inside.

Young,in love with music and a flair for writing poems into the wind,Lennie is the liveliest,most unreal yet totally believable character I have come across in a while.She screws up bad,makes a mess,grows to love it..and everything just works out in the end,like it's always meant to be.

Apart from the excellent writing that makes the story play vividly inside your head,what I loved most were the random pieces of poetry that Lennie wrote and which are included in the book in a scrawly handwriting.

The best takeaway from the book,which incidentally is also what the author believes is a summary -'Grief and love are conjoined and you cannot have one without the other.Grief is always going to be the measure of the love lost.'

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