Viewpoint: The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

What happens to a companion pony when its racehorse suddenly dies?  The analogy is a running theme in Jandy Nelson's young adult novel The Sky is Everywhere, a story about the grief sixteen year old Lennie struggles with when her older sister Bailey unexpectedly passes away.  In the days and weeks following Bailey's death, Lennie's search for her own sense of self leads her down a path filled with poor judgment and selfish decisions.

Nelson's dual Masters of Fine Arts served her well in the writing of The Sky is Everywhere.  She is an extremely talented writer, and very capably handles the subjects of death and mourning.  Her main character reads as a realistic teenager, and her supporting characters are all interesting, lively people that I'd be thrilled to have as acquaintances in the real world.  The relationships between the members of the Walker family are portrayed beautifully, with the absent relatives as much a tangible presence as six feet tall Gram and pothead Lothario Uncle Big.  However, I felt immensely conflicted over this story from near the start, and remained so until the last page. 

The source of my contention with The Sky is Everywhere lies with Lennie, the realistic teenage protagonist.  Lennie compares herself to a companion pony (and her sister Bailey to a racehorse) several times over the course of the novel.  She doesn't want to come in first, and even goes so far as to throw the audition for first chair in the high school orchestra so that she can continue to play clarinet in the position of second chair.  She doesn't believe she's anything approaching above average in looks, although the handsome new student thinks she's beautiful.  She's had sixteen years of practice being the mirror held up to her sister's bright light, and reflecting someone else's confidence, charm, and beauty has been satisfying enough.  With Bailey gone, there's no light to reflect, and she's floundering.

Moreover, Nelson resorted -- as many authors of books geared toward teenage girls do -- to using a classic novel as shorthand for her protagonist's erudition, intellect, and emotional depth.  It's always interesting to come across novels where this device is employed, as the classic novel referenced often acts as a litmus test for the female protagonist's personality, and for how she interacts with the male romantic interests in the story.  When Pride and Prejudice is the favored book, the protagonist is typically smart, headstrong, outspoken, independent, and interested in romance but not to an absurd degree.  When the book is Anne of Green Gables, the protagonist is quirky, outgoing, a free spirit, and a dreamer.

In The Sky is Everywhere, Lennie's favorite book -- the book she's read twenty three times -- is Wuthering Heights.  Nelson's use of Wuthering Heights is no doubt intended to indicate that Lennie is fond of classic literature, that beneath her quiet exterior lies an insatiable romantic core, that Lennie will always be in pursuit of the ideal passion-filled romance, but that's not how it reads to me.  Wuthering Heights is a novel about a woman who chose pragmatism over passion, and how the abused boy she tried to protect became an abusive monster fueled by thoughts of revenge not only on his lost love, but on her husband and her children.  Not sexy, not romantic.  Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, and Cathy are mentioned approximately thirty times over the course of the novel, and every time it's a reminder to me that the book that Lennie has read nearly to the point of memorization is the same one that showcases one of the most unhealthy and obsessive romances ever written.  Near the end of the book, Lennie and her Gram destroy the well-worn copy of Wuthering Heights with Gram's garden shears, and I let out an impromptu cheer in the privacy of my living room -- but alas, a few chapters later, Lennie declares passionately to her love interest, '"I want to be with you forever!"'  As Lennie says, 'You can chop the Victorian novel to shreds with garden shears but you can't take it out of the girl.'  More's the pity.

In Emily Bronte's world -- and through the lens that Lennie views the book -- Heathcliff is a sympathetic character, though outside of a fictional universe the cruel acts that he commits would have landed him in prison for an extended stay.  This is not a book that teenage girls need to be looking to for inspiration on their love lives, or for examples of healthy and functional romantic relationships.  Wuthering Heights is consistently at the top of my list of books that I cannot stand, and to see it mentioned with such frequency in The Sky is Everywhere that it practically qualified as a character was highly problematic for me.

It is entirely possible that I am being too judgmental.  Wuthering Heights is a book that brings out a knee jerk negative reaction in me.  I was busy reading and rereading Mariel of Redwall and all of Tamora Pierce's books in elementary school and middle school, and not one of those characters was ever obsessively, overwhelmingly focused on romance -- and none of them ever used Wuthering Heights as their playbook for romance, either.

In brief: the supporting characters were fantastic, and Nelson has a tremendous way with words.  However, Lennie's obsession with Wuthering Heights was an insurmountable problem, and I wish that Nelson had made her protagonist a little less ordinary and a little more awesome.