Intricate, Vivid, Sensitive
I'll Give You the Sun is an intricate novel in which the characters' lives are interwoven in unexpected ways. For example, when Jude learns that her mother and Guillermo were secretly in love, she's blown away. "Mom is Dearest," she says. "She's the clay woman climbing out of the clay man's chest. She's the stone woman he makes again and again and again. She's the color-drenched faceless woman in the painting of the kiss." (8.29) She's the scary woman who's in your house!
Just kidding about that last one.
In addition to the complicated plot, the author also has a knack for strong images. When Noah wants to convey that Jude is upset, he says, "Jude barfs bright blue fluorescent barf all over the table, but I'm the only one who notices." (1.98) Even his normcore father is "glow-in-the-dark normal" (1.57). If that's not how you thought about normalcy before, well, this vivid language makes sense in a book in which the visual arts figure in so heavily.
Finally, I'll Give You the Sun has a lot of big feelings, including grief, love, and shame. What's more, all of those big feelings are really, really complicated—even contradictory. Thinking about her mother's affair, Jude says, "It was right and wrong both. Love is as it undoes. It goes after, with equal tenacity: joy and heartbreak." (8.107)
Emotionally, author Jandy Nelson puts her characters through the ringer. But what's really sensitive about her writing is how compassionate it is. Jude and Noah do horrible, unforgiveable things, but their motivations are always understandable. If Noah kicked an orphan you'd probably just be like, yeah, I get it.
Not that he actually kicks any orphans. That would be weird.