Jandy Nelson introduces you to the city of Clover, where a world of heart wrenching grief and the desire for unconditional love takes place in her breathtaking novel, The Sky is Everywhere.
Just another teenage girl, a junior in high school, Lennie Walker is a talented clarinetist who has a nonexistent history with boys and finds the utmost joy in reading. Growing up without their mother in their lives, Lennie and her older sister Bailey are very attached to one another. They're always dependent on each other when suddenly Lennie has no one to depend on anymore. Bailey has died abruptly at the peak of her youth being only nineteen years of age. The death of Bailey has long lasting effects on Lennie which evokes desire, and heartbreaking agony throughout this amazing novel.
Though Lennie isn't really involved with boys, she now finds herself trying to balance between two. Joe who’s the new kid in town, and Toby who was Bailey's boyfriend. She feels very strongly for them both. Joe brings her out of her grief and shows her a side of love she never knew existed, while Toby comforts her in her grief because he understands her like no other since Bailey's passing.
Throughout this novel, Nelson shows the reader what it truly feels like to fall in love, and to grieve. Joe and Toby both mean the world to Lennie, "But just like their celestial counterparts, they can't collide without the whole world ending", says Nelson. This all somehow ties back to Bailey. To lose someone so close to your heart, someone you can't even bring yourself to imagine living without, is utterly terrible. Wherever Lennie goes, whatever she does, she is always reminded of her sister. Bailey will always be everywhere, just like the sky.