 Entertainment Weekly calls her just-released second YA novel, I'll Give You the Sun, a blazing, prismatic explosion of color. Visit her online at jandynelson.com. Please welcome her. Hi, everybody. It's a real honor to be here. And now it's time for first love. That has been so fascinating. You guys are amazing. OK, so this novel is about twins, Noah and Jude. And these twins have always been inseparable. And then something happens, and tragedy strikes, and it tears them apart and tears their relationship apart. And the novel is told in dueling point of views from Noah's perspective when the twins are 13 and from Jude's when they're 16 on the other side of the tragedy. And it's very much a tapestry of interweaving love stories, both gay and straight romantic love stories, but also a lot of familial love stories between mother's, daughter's, father's, sons, the dead and the living, and also art and all the... I feel like art is another character in the novel that the other characters are very intimately involved with. But today I'm going to read from Noah's perspective. And I think what you need to know is there's already these seeds of terrible fierce competition between the twins, and the rift has already started, even though the tragedy hasn't occurred yet. And Noah is kind of a weird guy. He's very isolated, and he's just a fanatical drawer. He just loves to draw so much. So throughout, while I'm reading, there'll be portraits and self-portraits, so that's what that is. And right now he's on the roof of the house. He has binoculars, and he's often on the roof of the house with binoculars. And so here we begin. I find Jude on the beach and zoom in. She's surrounded by the same bunch of girls she's been hanging around with all spring, and so far this summer instead of me. Pretty hornet girls in bright bikinis with suntans that glimmer for miles. I know all about hornets. If one sends out a distress signal, it can trigger a whole nest attack. This can be deadly to people like me. Mom says Jude acts the way she does now on account of hormones, but I know it's on account of her hating me. She stopped going to museums with us ages ago, which is probably a good thing, because when she did, her shadow kept trying to strangle mine. I'd see it happening on the walls or on the floor. Sometimes lately, I catch her shadow creeping around my bed at night trying to pull the dreams out of my head. I have a good idea what she does instead of coming to museums though. Three times now I've seen hickeys on her neck. Bug bites, she said. Sure. I heard while spying that she and Courtney Barrett had been riding bikes down to the boardwalk on weekends where they see who can kiss more boys. Portrait, Jude braiding boy after boy into her hair. The truth is, Jude doesn't have to send her shadow after me. It's not like she can't take mom down to the beach and show her one of her flying sandwomen before the tide wipes it out. It would change everything. Not that I want that, not one bit. The other day, I was watching her make one from the bluff. She was at her place three coves away. This time it was a big round woman like always except she was halfway turned into a bird. So incredible it made my head vibrate. I snapped a picture with dad's camera but then something really horrible and maggoty came over me. And as soon as Jude had walked off and was out of sight and earshot, I slid down the whole cliff, raced through the sand and roaring like a howler monkey knocked into the awesome bird woman with my whole body toppling and kicking it to nothing. I couldn't even wait for the tide to take it out this time. I got sand everywhere, in my eyes and ears and down my throat. I kept finding it on me days after, in my bed, in my clothes, under my nails but I had to do it. It was too good. What if mom had gone for a walk and seen it? Because what if it's Jude who has it? Why wouldn't that be the case? She surfs waves as big as houses and jumps off anything. She has skin that fits and friends and dad and the sweet wine gift and gills and fins in addition to lungs and feet. She gives off light, I give off dark. Portrait, self-portrait, twins, the flashlight and the flash dark. Ugh, my body's tightening into a rung towel from thinking like this and all the colors spiraling off of everything. Self-portrait, Gray Noah eating gray apples on gray grass. Okay, so there he is now. He's still on the roof but things are looking up because he has tracked his binoculars up and is watching these very hot sexy movers moving this new family into the house two times over, two houses down and he sees that on the roof of this house is a boy around his age who has a telescope on him. And so Noah becomes very intrigued by this boy and his hormones have started to go crazy and he's very attracted to guys. And so anyway, here's Noah. So he's obsessed with this idea of going to this arts high school and so he's been sneaking around the high school and drawing the models through the windows and so this is after a little escapade of doing that. One thing you need to know from this scene is that he had an encounter with the model and the model's English and when the model left he started talking to the trees in an English accent. He thought he was alone. So anyway, this is the first encounter with the boy next door. A few steps into the walk, I see the kid from the roof leaning against a tree, the same grin, the same dark green hat spinning now on his hand, his hair is a bonfire of white light. I blink because sometimes I see things blinking still. Then to further confirm his existence, he speaks. How was class, he says, like it's not the strangest thing in the world that he's here, not the strangest thing that I take drawing outside rather than inside a classroom, not the strangest thing that we don't know each other and yet he's smiling at me like we do, and mostly not the strangest thing that he followed me because there's no other explanation for him standing here in front of me. As if he heard me thinking, he says, yeah, I followed you, wanted to check out the woods but I've been busy with my own stuff. He points to an open suitcase full of rocks. He collects rocks and carries them around in a suitcase. My meteorite bag's still packed, he says, and I nod like this explains something. I look at him more closely. He's a bit older than me, taller and bigger anyway. I realize I have no idea what color I'd use for his eyes, none at all. Today is definitely the day of the supremely excellent-eyed people. His are such a light brown, practically yellow or copper maybe and all splintered with green but you can only see flashes of the color because he squints which is cool on a face. Stare much, he says. I drop my gaze, embarrassed, a total whale dick dork. My neck prickling and hot. I start shuffling some pine needles into a pyramid with the toe of my shoe. He says, well, you're probably just used to it from staring at that English guy for so long today. I look up. Was he spying on me this whole time? He's eyeing my pad curiously. He was naked. He breathes in as he says it and it makes my stomach drop to the ground floor. I try to keep my face calm. I think about him watching me watch the movers, about him following me down here. He glances at my pad again. Does he want me to show him the naked drawings of the English guy? I think he does and I want to, bad. A heat storm, way more intense than the one before, is whipping through me. I'm pretty sure I've been hijacked and I'm no longer at the brain controls. It's his weird, squinting, copper-colored eyes that are hypnotizing me. Then he smiles but only with half his mouth and I notice he has a space between his front teeth, also supremely cool on a face. He says with a laugh in his voice, look, dude, I have no idea how to get home. I tried and ended up back here. I've been waiting for you to leave the way. He puts on his hat. I point in the direction we need to go and make my hijacked body start walking. He latches the suitcase full of rocks, picks it up by the handle and follows. I try not to look at him as we walk. I want to be rid of him, I think. I keep my eyes on the trees. Trees are safe and quiet and don't want me to show them the naked pictures in my pad. It's a long way, mostly uphill and more daylight seeping out of the woods every minute. Next to me, even with the suitcase of rocks, the guy bounces along under his hat like his legs have springs in them. After a while, the trees settle me back into my skin or maybe he has because it's actually not awful or anything walking with him. He might even have some realm of calm thing going on around him. Maybe he emits it from a finger because yeah, I feel relaxed now. I mean, supernaturally relaxed like I'm left out butter. This is highly weird. He keeps stopping to pick up rocks, examining them and then either tossing them back or stuffing them in his sweatshirt pocket, which is starting to sag with the weight. I stand by when he does this, wanting to ask what he's searching for, wanting to ask why he followed me, wanting to ask about the telescope and if he can see the stars during this daytime, wanting to ask where he's from and what his name is and if he surfs and how old he is and what school he's going to next fall. A few times I try to form a question so it sounds casual and normal, but each time the words get caught somewhere in my throat and never make it out, finally I give up and just start painting in my head. That's when it occurs to me that maybe the rocks are weighing him down so he doesn't rise into the air. We walk and walk through the gray ashy dusk and the forest starts to fall asleep. The trees lie down side by side, the creek halts, the plants sink back into the earth, the animals switch places with their shadows and then so do we. When we break out of the woods onto our road he spins around, holy hell, a shit. That's the longest I've gone without talking. Like in my life it was like holding my breath. I was having a contest with myself. Are you always like this? Like what? I say, my voice hoarse. Dude, he cries. Do you know those are the first words you've said? I didn't. Man, you're like the Buddha or something. My mom's a Buddhist. She goes to the silent retreat. She should just hang out with you instead. Oh, oh, not counting of course. I'm a bloody artist, a bloody mess mate. He says this last part with a heavy accent then cracks up. He heard me talking, talking to the trees. So much bloods rushing and gushing to my head. It might blow straight off my neck. All the silence of our walk is gurgling madly out of him now. And I can tell he's someone who laughs a lot, the way it's taking him over so easily and lighting him all up. And even though he's laughing at me, it's making me feel OK and making me feel a little bubbleheaded as laughter starts to fizz up in me too. I mean, it was supremely funny. Me yammering away in an English accent all alone like that. And then he says it again. Wait, yammering away in English accent all alone like that. And then he says it again, his accent super thick. I'm a bloody artist. And then I say, a bloody mess mate. And something gives way. And I'm laughing outright. And he says it again. And I do. And then we're both laughing, then the doubled over kind. And it's ages before we calm down. Because each time one of us does, the other says, I'm a bloody mess mate. And the whole thing starts all over again. When we finally get it back together, I realize I have no idea what just happened to me. Nothing like that has ever happened before. I feel like I just flew or something. He points to my pad. So I guess you talk in there. Pretty much, I say, we're under a street lamp. And I'm trying not to stare, but it's hard. I wish the world would stick like a clock so I could look at him for as long as I want. There's something going on in his face right now. Something very bright trying to get out. A dam keeping back a wall of light. I want to say more so he doesn't leave. I feel so good. The freaking green, leafy kind of good. I paint in my head, I tell him. I was the whole time. I've never told anyone I do this, not even Jude. And I have no idea why I'm telling him. I've never let anyone into the invisible museum before. What were you painting, he asks. You, I say. The surprise opens his eyes wide. I shouldn't have said it. I didn't mean to. It just popped out. The air feels all crackly now, and his smiles vanished. Just yards away, my house is a lighthouse. Before I even realize I'm darting across the street, a queasy feeling in my stomach like I ruined everything. That last brushstroke that always destroys the painting. He'll probably try to throw me off devil's drop tomorrow with fry. He'll probably take those rocks and as I reach the front step I hear, how'd I come out? Curiosity in his voice, not a smidge of ass hat. I turn around, he's moved out of the light. I can only see a shadowy shape in the road. This is how he came out. He floated into the air, high above the sleeping forest. His green hat spinning a few feet above his head. In his hand was the open suitcase, and out of it spilled a whole sky of stars. I can't tell him, though. How could I? So I turn back around, jump the steps, open the door, and go inside without looking back.