*spoilers in this entry*
i knew nothing of the premise, except that it was about twins. the novel was told from the perspective of two twins, noah and jude. i enjoyed the chapters from noah's perspective because they were filled with beautiful imagery. since noah was artistic, he painted in his head. here are some examples of the images in his head:
when jude is upset about the idea of going to art school, "jude barfs bright blue fluorescent bard all over the table, but i'm the only one who notices."
or when jude is jealous and he paints portrait of her: green with envy, "skin: lime. hair: chartreuse. eyes: forest. allof her: green, green, green."
so colorful right?
i also love how he paints moments, here are a couple of them:
(self-portrait: a window flies open in my chest)
(self-portrait: the boy hiding inside the boy hiding inside the boy)
(portrait: mom sleepwalking into another life)
(family portrait: assume the crash position)
(self-portrait: boy hitches ride on passing comet)
i really wish this book was illustrated so that we could see the paintings in noah's mind.
jude's chapters were filled with the colorful wives tales of her grandmother's bible.
some samples of entries:
to avoid serious illness, keep an onion in your pocket
if a boy gives a girl an orange, her love for him will multiply
i enjoyed these superstitions as well.
so back to the novel, in the beginning, we are introduced to the twins, noah, the artsy, gay, oddball, and jude, the hot, popular, surfer chick. their mother had presented the idea of them attending high school at an arts academy. noah was elated especially since his mother was so excited about his talent, which made jude jealous.
cut to a couple years later and the family had done a 180. jude was now the artsy loner attending art school while noah was athletic, popular and "normal" attending regular school. also, their parents had separated and sadly their mother died in a car accident.
jude convinced her mother's ghost is destroying her art because as we later learned she never sent in her brother's application with her, jude went to a famous sculptor, guillermo garcia, to learn to sculpt using something her mother's ghost couldn't break, rock.
her work with guillermo, ultimately resulted in the world getting straightened out for the two twins. it was discovered that her mother and guillermo were lovers during their parents separation. demonstrating that some people should be in your life.
there were also a handful of other subplots including noah's homosexuality. he became friends with their neighbor, brian, and thought brian liked him back. however, an incident with jude and brian and 7 minutes in heaven, resulted in awkwardness between the twins. brian turned out to be gay too, but then in a fit of anger, noah outed him. but luckily, brian was able to come out and find acceptance at his high school and he and noah became boyfriends! yay!
jude also had a love interest, who sounded hot, but i was concern about the age difference. i mean i got swept up in their attraction by then it lost it appealed when one realized jude was like 16. but i mean they were destined, his mom did predict their meeting.
i have to add that i loved the inclusion of plato's theory of split-aparts, it reminded me of hedwig.
also there was an incident of date rape with jude that was heartbreaking to read, but didn't get resolved other than jude going on a boy strike and confronting her abuser and telling him to never do what he did to another girl.
all in all, an enjoyable read. it was predicable at times, but interesting and nice to see high schoolers tolerant of homosexuality.
ps i just discovered this gallery of the artwork mentioned in the novel: http://jandynelson.com/gallery/
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