~I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson~ Review and Giveaway!!!

                Welcome back!  Okay so I have a moment of ‘duh’ to share first.  I kept hearing everyone mention time change and how I should make sure I don’t forget about it.  I figure ‘I got this’ I will not forget.  Trouble is I don’t have a normal 9-5 job and my days off rotate by week.  Well I was off and I had spent the day down at my families and all so it was like a weekend and I had to work the next day.  It felt like Sunday apparently, even though my TV schedule didn’t agree my brain was set it was the day for time change.  I figured I’d gain an hour, which is really a free hour to read, and then when my alarm went off and I had 20 minutes to get up showered food ready and out the door I realized my error.  Yep it was Tuesday night not Sunday night.  So bright side is I didn’t forget time change I just got a bit eager in it.  That little bit aside the moral is this Sunday (I’ve confirmed this per Google and set an alarm) you book lovers gain an hour that can be spent reading! 

                That aside today I really have a review and giveaway for you, one I’ve been putting off for some time because…well my feelings are a bit complicated.  The book giving me all these conflicting thoughts and feels is I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson.  Before I rate this I wanted to go ahead and share that this book was a high 5 Stars for me through most of the book, I was loving it, but then after one thing that is more of a personal pet peeve of mine that makes me blow a gasket I lost all my love for it and wanted to give it up with not much to go.  I did keep reading, and ranting to my read along pal Bogdana, and while my one thing still annoys me to the point of insanity I have had a chance to look at the whole thing.  While I don’t think it’s fair to give a book I loved so much a 0 star for one thing that is such a personal issue, yes I wanted to for a while, I decided to just take some time and space from it before I rated it.

Rating: 4 Stars (I only took 1 star)

                I’ll Give You the Sun is a story told from two different POVs and from two different times.  Before and After.  Twins Jude and Noah are super close at thirteen but things change and only three years later they hardly speak.  Something wrecked the twins in different ways.  The early years are told from Noah’s perspective and the later years we hear from Jude.  What the twins don’t realize is that they only know half the story and it’s not until you have both sides that you have a whole picture and maybe a chance to find their way back to one another. 

                The time jumps between the different time lines and character was done in a way that really showcased the story.  I liked going from one time line to the other and seeing how things played out.  It was great since I found Jude to be a bit unlikable in the early years but in the later chapters I got to see a different side of her and it soothed the rougher edges of her personality.  Noah is the only character I think I enjoyed through the whole story.  He may have had his not so grand moments but I totally understood each move and understood them from the start. 

                 I can’t really discuss the story line itself but they do overlap in characters they meet and interact with and such.  It showed how far they had fallen from one another as twins.  From their game of dividing up the world to the love of art they both shared.  The story covers it all from family, loss, first loves, and betrayal.  It’s a sweet and compelling contemporary read I think I would have loved without a shadow of a doubt if I didn’t have a specific pet peeve.  So not wanting to push others from it, as most don’t agree with my pet peeve or think I over react which I admit is a strong possibility, I say to give it a go because I really did like the story.

                I figure I’ll get some questions on this so I’ll add it here.  My nuclear pet peeve with this is:  Someone screwing up, realizing it was big, and never apologizing.  Or some lame and vague apology that doesn’t have any depth and expect everything is good 5 minutes later like it magically never happened makes me roll my eyes.   Maybe it’s too many experiences where people have hurt me in the past and never apologized or did in a way that you couldn’t tell if they were sorry for what they did or for being caught doing it/called out on it.  I get wanting to get past the awkward phase but you can’t ignore it or it will never be repaired.  What kills me is this story would never have made me blow a gasket if two scenes had been switched that’s it two little things…so in my head and for my sanity I just change the order a bit.  Again totally my personal preference.  I just find I can’t like a character who can hurt someone and not apologize and someone who can just go on like nothing happened without anything I lose respect for them.

                 Anywho those are my thoughts on this story and a bit more about myself.  Please share your thoughts below in the comments.  I’m really interested to know if any of you have any personal pet peeves that can ruin a perfectly good book for you.  Let’s discuss I know I can’t be the only one out there in the world.  Now for the giveaway curtesy of Amazon and the mix up.  I ordered this book and they sent me two copies, and after I tried to do the right thing and advise them of the mix up they told me I could keep the second copy for their mishap so I figured it would be perfect for a giveaway! 

                Until next time…

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Bookish Pet Peeves Part 1

Part 1 

Hello everyone!  I have many reviews I am working on right now but this post has been rambling around in my head for some time and I think it’s something we can all relate to.  Bookish Pet Peeves.  This post will be in 2 parts. 

Part 1 is going to focus on the physical book buying/owning aspect, whereas, Part 2 will focus on my pet peeves in the stories themselves.  Part 2 is going to be posted on my dear friend and fellow book nerd Sarah Leigh's blog, A Girl Who Reads.  So check there for part 2.  I’m sure many of you will agree with me on most and may even have some of your own I’ve neglected to mention so please share them below so we can add them and discuss.  Let's get right into them the Bookish Pet Peeves, in no particular order.

1) Stickers.  I understand needing to pu

t them on for pricing and jazz sure. How is it possible though that some use the nice glue that peels off super easy and others seem to be welded onto the book cover and unwilling to let go without serious work or *gasp* possible book damage.  My thoughts are to only use the good easy to peel, non residue leaving glue or don't use stickers at all.

                1A) Placement.  This one needs a sub category.  Even the good stickers sometimes suffer from…bad placement.  If I’m browsing through the store, perusing the beautiful books on the shelf and come across one of interest I would like to be able to read the back of the book and discover what it is about and if I want to take it home with me.  That is rather hard when a sticker is taking up half the summary space.

2) Cover changes.  How many of you have started a series with a cover you may or may not adore only to have the at least one book, many times the last one, in the series changed?  Yep, I hate it.  They no longer match on my beautiful shelf.  Worst of all is when you can’t even recognize it.  The change looks so completely different that you would never guess it was part of a series but something completely different.  Example: Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi or The Curse Workers series by Holly Black to name a few that I own.  With Shatter Me in order to get a matching set you have to get paperback or you have to get the miss match covers.  Why? 

                *Side note I recently learned via booktube that the hard covers for Stephanie Perkins books, are being re-jacketed so they match.  OMG how flipping awesome is that?  All publishers should do that, and have an option where people like me could order just the matching cover.

3) Series format changes.  This is similar to #2 as it changes the appearance of the series but is more focused on the books that start out in paperback as the only options available and then as it becomes popular the other half come out in hardcover.  Fine, I get it that they didn’t have hardcovers at first, but why not capitalize on the fact that people like myself would rebuy the first book or 3 in hardcover if it was offered, with a matching cover that is?  Perfect example:  The Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. 

4) Books in a series not marked. Recently I’ve purchased a lot of books, many were complete series, that I have not had the pleasure of reading yet.  It is an exciting thing to receive all the books in the mail and then sort through them and put them on your shelf.  However, if you haven’t read the books yet, it may be difficult to put them in the correct order, and reading the synopsis on the back would just spoil you.  I wish they would clearly mark somewhere on the book spine, front, or even the title page what book # it is in a series.  Save me the hassle of looking it up.  Also this would allow someone picking up a brand new book to see and prepare for a series and not a stand-alone.  I would have loved to know many of my books were going to be series before starting them, I might have held off a little longer so the wait would have been shorter before the next book. 

WHY?  JUST WHY?

5) Bent pages.  I am very OCD about my books, I will not just pick it up off the shelf and buy it in the store.  No.  I have to page through it to make sure there are no stray marks on the pages, tares, or anything that otherwise make it less than the perfect book for me.  Sarah Leigh has learned this while shopping with me and normally just hands me the book for inspection.  Grasshopper learned fast.  This is also why I am super picky about who I lend books out to, with understanding of not to dog ear my pages for fear of ninja attack.  This is why I also normally lend them out with a book mark handily inside.

6) Standard size.  I have a good collection of both hardcover and paperback books.  I prefer the hard covers for many reasons.  One of those reasons being that the hardcover books seem to have a standard size.  I'm not talking length but height, you have the average book and the tall book.  Okay two options I can work with and all my shelves can be level and even, with a rare exception.  Then you have the paperback.  They have so many different heights it is insane to try and line them up evenly on your shelf, they never work, I have about 8 different heights on one shelf and it drives me bonkers. You would assume it would make sense to only have 1-2 format sizes, that it would save money right?  What do I know? 

                There you have my 6 main Bookish Pet Peeves dealing with the physical.  Stay tuned and I’ll have Part 2 up on Sarah Leigh's blog tomorrow.  Share your own physical book pet peeves with me below.