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Sign up todayWhen the World Tips Over
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Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“This book is nothing you expect it to be. It’s heart breaking and odd and a bit mystical. It’s a medical drama, a multigenerational family drama, a love story, it’s everything, and the writing is absolutely stunning! ”
— Hannah • Star Line Books
Bookseller recommendation
“I’m obsessed with this book! I have told everyone that reads about it. The narrators are perfection. Even if you aren’t a young adult, this book will give you all of the feelings. ”
— Jaime • Plenty
Bookseller recommendation
“Jandy Nelson’s newest novel, When the World Tips Over, takes readers on a beautiful, heart-breaking journey of the Fall family. Nelson’s use of magical realism captivates and transports readers to the small town of Paradise Springs, California. Each of the three Fall children have their own unique story and voice in different chapters of the book as they struggle with the abandonment of their father, their sexuality, and complex family dynamics. When a pink-haired, angel-like girl, Cassidy, enters each of their lives in very different ways, the reader gets to hear her story of growing up in an RV with her young mother who struggled with mental health. This book is beautiful and sad and hopeful and everything I would want from a coming-of-age story. It beautifully portrays both gay and straight teenage relationships in a way that is affirming to all. I highly recommend this book to high school students as well as adults!”
— Danielle • Off the Beaten Path
Bookseller recommendation
“A gorgeous tale of the Fall family as they wade through grief and change when a new rainbow haired girl blows into town. Jandy Nelson is one of my favorite author of all time, she writes the Fall siblings with gorgeous imagery and believable confusion mixed with equal parts joy. This book was worth every second of waiting to find out about each member of the Fall family, past and present!!!! ”
— Reece • Downtown Books
Bookseller recommendation
“A story told within a story told within a story filled with generational trauma, family curses, and first (and last) loves. When the Worlds Tips Over will open your mind and heart to the joy of the unexpected and the power of forgiveness. Nelson's writing style melded the magic of oral and written storytelling to bring the history of The Falls Family to the page. Best read with a bowl of grapes (or glass of wine) while soaking up the sun.”
— Jenny • E. Shaver, bookseller
* 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 new 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
The Fall siblings live in hot Northern California wine country, where the sun pours out of the sky, and the devil winds blow so hard they whip the sense right out of your head.
Years ago, the Fall kids’ father mysteriously disappeared, cracking the family into pieces. Now Dizzy Fall, age twelve, bakes cakes, sees spirits, and wishes she were a heroine of a romance novel. Miles Fall, seventeen, brainiac, athlete, and dog-whisperer, is a raving beauty, but also lost, and desperate to meet the kind of guy he dreams of. And Wynton Fall, 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 out who she is, catastrophe strikes, leaving the Falls more broken than ever. And more desperate to be whole.
With road trips, rivalries, family curses, love stories within love stories within love stories, and sorrows and joys passed from generation to generation, this is the intricate, luminous tale of a family’s complicated past and present. And only in telling their stories can they hope to rewrite their futures.
"Splendid and complex . . . Satisfying and soul-thrilling." —SLJ (starred review)
"Transcendently beautiful.” —Nina LaCour, author of We Are Okay
“Jandy Nelson is a rare, explosive talent.” —Tahereh Mafi, author of the Shatter Me series
“Sumptuous . . . Captivating . . . Luscious, start to finish.” —Shelf Awareness (starred review)
“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
"Profound." —PW (starred review)
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.
Reviews
* Instant New York Times Bestseller ** #1 Indie Bestseller *
* USA Today Bestseller *
* Indie Next Pick *
★ "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
"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)
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