Hey! Do you want to read a book with elements of
tragedy, passion, explorations of sexuality, passion in several of its forms, betrayal, redemption, beauty, courage, intense relationships, art, science, nature, substance abuse, transformation, and any number of things that have escaped me, and
one you’ll keep thinking about for hours or days (or longer — I don’t know yet) after you’ve finished it?
Man, this was good. So, it’s a YA novel, incidentally, but if you’re of a mind to avoid it for that reason, don’t do it, I tell you! The elevator pitch synopsis is Jude and Noah, twin siblings, were inseparable in that twin way, but took different paths after being affected by outside sources they either didn’t understand or weren’t aware of, or both. They’re both supremely fucked up in their own lovely ways, and we get the story from both their perspectives, Noah’s when they’re 14ish, and Jude’s two years later, post-family tragedy. I finished this yesterday, in front of a fire, during a power outage, which was fucking PERFECT because I was really burrowed in, and moments like this:
“I let myself feel the terrible, surrender to it finally instead of running from it, instead of telling myself it all belongs to Noah and not to me, instead of putting an index of fears and superstitions between me and it, instead of mummifying myself in layers of clothing to protect myself from it, and I’m falling forward with the force of two years of buried grief, the sorrow of ten thousand oceans finally breaking inside me–
I let it. I let my heart break.”
were stunning.
“Moving” isn’t a word I use often. It doesn’t apply often in my experience, but I’m moved, really really moved. This book is beautiful. Read it, ‘ballers!
