I'll Give You The Sun Themes

I'll Give You the Sun follows Noah and Jude at two critical times in their lives: at ages 14 and 16. Those are years during which many young people grow into their adult (or adult-ish) identities,...

Woo boy. The Sweetwine household is extremely dysfunctional. We're talking Russian-novel levels of insane family drama. Dianna Sweetwine's sudden death occurred just as she was in the middle of a s...

Dang y'all. Jude and Noah Sweetwine are some low-down dirty dogs. They do inexcusable things to each other (and, occasionally, to others). Seriously, these jerks will steal your boyfriend, sabotage...

Jude and Noah feel guilty about a lot of things. For different reasons, they feel responsible for the death of their mother. They also feel bad about the nasty stuff they've done to each other. (Se...

Death and grief are a huge part of the characters' lives. The teenagers—Noah, Jude, and Oscar—are each struggling to have normal romantic relationships (and, like, any relationships) in the sha...

I'll Give You the Sun could be described as a ghost story…or not. (That depends on whether or not you think the ghosts of Dianna and Grandma Sweetwine are real.) It's also filled with the wackado...

Noah thinks of himself and others as the titles of portraits (e.g., "SELF-PORTRAIT: The Boy Hiding Inside the Boy Hiding Inside the Boy." [1.118]) Jude describes people in terms of famous artworks...

Ch-ch-ch-changes! Classic. Aren't you inspired already? Grandma Sweetwine would be swooning, that's for sure. But, on top of an excuse to sneak in some Bowie brilliance, change is a big part of the...