first read 2019: i love it. such a unique, beautifully written coming of age story <33

edit 2nd read 2022: GOD I AM SO HAPPY I RE-READ THIS BOOK. i remember i loved it when i first read it but i definitely love it even more now. it’s my favourite book (well, maybe second, because, red white & royal blue <33). the story jandy nelson tells is just exquisite, but most of all it’s so unique, like i’ve literally never read anything like it. the characters are both so developed and another reason i’m so glad i read it is because i understand jude’s character so much better now. i loved her love story with oscar and her character development is so nice to see over the course of the book as she learns to forgive her mother but most of all forgive herself and learn to love and let people in. noah and brian’s love story was my favourite though, there’s just something about it that’s so tender and so heart-mending. also i love this book’s focus on art and how art is brought out through the writing when talking about the character’s emotions and the metaphors are just *chefs kiss*. i could probably talk about this book forever but i’ll stop now. please read this book❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

edit 3rd read 2024: i read this book for the first time in middle school, again in 10th grade, and a 3rd time just now, in 11th grade. i love rereading books because the story is always the same, but you're the one who's changed, so you always look at it a little bit differently. although, no matter how many times i read this it never ceases to amaze me; it is still, to date, the most incredible book i've ever read for so many reasons.

the way it's written in past and present perspective with both noah and jude's perspective enhances the story to a whole other level because you get to see them change and grow up and have all these experiences which make you so attached to them as characters, as people. i love how at times, you know more than the character themselves. this is an aspect i find so unique about i'll give you the sun that i have not found in any other book. i have read many books written in dual timelines and dual perspectives, but none have ever been executed as perfectly as this one. when i tell you that EVERYTHING is connected, i mean quite literally everything and it is SO COOL. and the best part is that it slowly unravels as you read, so eventually you connect all the dots and you are going along with the characters as they find out about so many things. i don't even know how to properly explain it because it is so fantastic; jandy nelson is insane because the crafting of this story is just GENIUS.

another thing i love about i'll give you the sun is how it so delicately handles all the themes in the book, which is a variety ranging from art and artist's relationships with their art, familial relationships (specifically sibling and parent/child relationships), romantic relationships, love, hatred, grief, coming of age, and growing up. the writing is remarkable, this is the most annotated book i own, literally almost every page has some underlining or highlighting. sometimes when authors try to make a book "deep" with a bunch of topics, they don't actually go into each topic with enough depth so it ends up being a huge mess. this, however, is definitely not one of those books; all the themes were thoroughly explored with nuance and refinement and each one served a particular purpose to the novel so you could see how it impacted the characters at different times in their life.

particularly, something i think is important to note as this is a young adult novel, is how well she writes about growing up and just general teenage emotions. i've read a lot of YA and sometimes those books aren't a very accurate representation of a teenage lives and teenage emotions, but this book encapsulates growing up in general SO WELL. even though my life is super different from both noah and jude's, i still related to so much of what they were feeling throughout the course of the novel. like i said, it makes you feel as if you're going on a journey with them. the characters are so nuanced developed, they just feel so REAL. they're not perfect, they make mistakes, they make you angry or disappointed at times, but it just goes to show how everyone makes mistakes and does things they inevitably regret, especially when we're young. growing up is hard confusing and messy and beautiful and wondrous. it's everything. noah and jude are so special to me, i will always love them <3.

anyway, this is my favourite book of all time and i think everyone should read it. the amount of emotions that struck me as i read it overwhelmed me (in a good way), just like they do every time. as noah would say, "my heart's bigger than a blue whale's, which needs its own parking spot".