When the World Tips Over - by Jandy Nelson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

* An Instant New York Times Bestseller *

"Jandy Nelson is a true virtuoso . . . I am fervently in love with this brave, funny, tender, exuberant beating heart of a book." --Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Imogen, Obviously

The explosive novel that brims with love, secrets, and enchantment by Jandy Nelson, Printz Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of I'll Give You the Sun

* This stunning first edition boasts brilliant blue sprayed edges, creating a sumptuous look for this dazzling saga. *

Years ago in California wine country, where the sun pours out of the sky and the hot devil winds blow the sense right out of your head, the three Fall siblings' father mysteriously disappeared, breaking the family into pieces. Now Dizzy, age twelve, bakes cakes, sees spirits, and wishes she were the heroine of a romance novel. "Perfect Miles," seventeen, the boy no one worries about (though everyone should) is adrift, only the neighbor's dog aware that he dreams of other guys. And Wynton, nineteen, who raises the temperature of a room just by entering it, is a virtuoso violinist set on a crash course for fame . . . or self-destruction.

Then an enigmatic rainbow-haired girl shows up, tipping the Falls' world over. She might be an angel. Or a saint. Or an ordinary girl. Somehow, she is vital to each of them. But before anyone can figure her out, catastrophe strikes, leaving the Falls more broken than ever.

With rivalries, road trips, family curses, and love stories upon love stories, this era-spanning epic explores the sorrows and joys passed from one generation to the next, as a family tries to rewrite their future.

"Sumptuous . . . Captivating . . . Luscious, start to finish." --Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"Splendid and complex . . . Satisfying and soul-thrilling." --SLJ (starred review)
"Transcendently beautiful." --Nina LaCour, author of We Are Okay
"[A] multigenerational epic sprinkled with magic . . . Profound." --PW (starred review)
"Jandy Nelson is a rare, explosive talent." --Tahereh Mafi, author of the Shatter Me series
"A technicolor fever dream offering readers a sensory feast." --Kirkus
"A gloriously intricate and expansive YA/adult crossover . . . Stunningly generous." --Just Imagine
"Sublime, intricate, and dazzling." --Helena Fox, author of How It Feels to Float
"A complex, seductive YA heartbreaker." --The Guardian
"Intoxicating. [Destined to] firmly lodge itself within many, many hearts." --The Irish Times
"Magical and moving." --Common Sense Media
"Beautiful." --Booklist
"Unforgettable." --The Observer

Review Quotes

* Instant New York Times Bestseller *
* #1 Indie Bestseller *
* USA Today Bestseller *
* Chicago Public Library Best Books of the Year *
* Common Sense Media Best Books of the Year *
* Kirkus Best Books of the Year *
* Irish Times Best Books of the Year *
* The Children's Book Review Best Teen Books of the Year *
* ALA Rainbow List Selection *
* Amazon Best Booka of the Last 25 Years *

★ "In this multigenerational epic sprinkled with magic, Nelson (I'll Give You the Sun) tackles grief, love, and the ways in which history commingles with the present. . . . Intricately rendered [and told] via myriad alternating perspectives . . . Nelson takes readers on a whirlwind journey toward a profound and satisfying destination." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

★ Nelson expertly weaves [all the threads] to create a splendid and complex tale. Her writing is magnetic. [Readers] will fall in love with her characters [and] be rewarded with a satisfying and soul-thrilling ending. This long-awaited follow-up to I'll Give You the Sun is well worth the wait. --School Library Journal (starred review)

★ "A multilayered [and] sumptuous example of fabulism, [When the World Tips Over] is steeped in the mysteries and missteps of the human condition . . . Luscious, start to finish." --Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"When the World Tips Over is transcendently beautiful. It bursts with life and spills over with heartache and love." --Nina LaCour, Printz Award-winning author of We Are Okay and Yerba Buena

"Sublime, intricate, and dazzling, When the World Tips Over kept opening and opening before me like a glorious map of treasures. I loved all of its delightful, flawed, sensitive characters, and the magic inside each of them. Jandy Nelson has created an epic and intimate tale. I adored it." --Helena Fox, award-winning author of How It Feels to Float and The Quiet and the Loud

"Jandy Nelson is a rare, explosive talent. Her prose is vivid, breathtaking, and drenched in passion, and her stories remind me why words can change the world." --Tahereh Mafi, New York Times bestselling author of the Shatter Me series

"Jandy Nelson is a true virtuoso, and When The World Tips Over left me speechless. I am fervently in love with this brave, funny, tender, exuberant beating heart of a book." --Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and co-author with Adam Silvera of What If It's Us

"A delirious, intoxicating spell of a book destined to end up on many important award lists and to firmly lodge itself within many, many hearts." --The Irish Times

"100% Nelson's signature fabulism and evocative, lyrical prose . . . Readers will be satisfied by the emotional collision of the various plotlines and the richly drawn main and secondary characters. . . . A technicolor fever dream offering readers a sensory feast." --Kirkus

"[A] complex family saga about self-understanding, relationships, secrets, and passed-down family trauma. . . . Traversing a wide range of topics and emotions through multiple perspectives and formats, World contemplates each with due attention and nuance, [achieving] a quilt-like story both in its warmth and in its patches coming together to make a beautiful narrative." --Booklist

"Jandy Nelson weaves an unforgettable tapestry of love, loss and magic realism. [Her] lyrical writing has a folksy, dreamy quality in this rewarding and complex multigenerational epic." --The Observer

"A gloriously intricate and expansive YA/adult crossover . . . Nelson's style is playful [yet her] writing reverberates with the pain of loss and longing . . . Almost nobody [in the novel] is who they initially seem, and often seemingly random moments turn out to have a far deeper significance. [Readers] will find that [the book] more than repays the effort they put in, and it may offer an excellent gateway to the work of Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel and many others." --Just Imagine

"Featuring intricately interwoven love stories, curses, rivalries and misunderstandings, Nelson's first book for ten years is a complex, seductive YA heartbreaker with a touch of magical realism." --The Guardian

"Lyrical prose, an epic plot . . . [Readers will] feel the pull of Nelson's carefully woven storytelling and succumb to her special kind of magic." --The Horn Book

"Absorbing [and] moving. [The] structure keeps the pages turning and builds suspense, [offering] a lot of food for thought about family, love, hate, sorrow, joy, and more. [This] sweeping generational family epic is magical and moving." --Common Sense Media (a Common Sense Selection)

About the Author

Jandy Nelson, like her characters in I'll Give You the Sun and The Sky is Everywhere, comes from a superstitious lot. She was tutored from a young age in the art of the four-leaf clover hunt; she knocks wood, throws salt, and carries charms in her pockets. Her novels have been on multiple best of the year lists and earned many starred reviews. I'll Give You the Sun is a New York Times Bestseller, and her debut novel, The Sky Is Everywhere, was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick and international success. Currently a full-time writer, Jandy lives and writes in San Francisco, California--not far from the settings of her novels.