I struggled to finish this as I knew no good was going to come at the end. Does that mean I didn’t like it? No, not at all. The author had a way of writing such an intense book full of trauma, pain, and grief that you got sucked in and kept reading.

Thrillers, YA, and alternative POVs are some of my favorite things to be included in a book. So, it's no surprise that I enjoyed this one. This is meant for older teens since it deals with some pretty intense subjects.

The Sky Above Us is a gripping novel that's difficult to put down. Following themes and analogies intertwined with mental health and grief in various forms, this book leaves space for different discussions.

Natalie Lund is an immersive writer. She can easily pull readers in and keep them hooked, and her writing style is quickly digestible and not difficult to follow. And while I would say she is absolutely a well-written author, there are some elements that still could have used work.

Characterization was a big part of this book, and there were several noticeable moving parts. I think Lund did a great job of characterizing the girls as being imperfect, messy, and in some cases, fairly toxic in thinking and actions. I did not pick up on Janie being autistic-coded until a few others pointed it out to me (but once the realization came, it was hard to overlook).

I do think that Janie deserved better in every sense. For a good chunk of her life, she was grieving and craving connection--true connection--with those around her; and everyone in her life failed her, in that aspect. While it may be possible in real life, I am uncomfortable with the fact that Janie became friends with two girls who previously perpetuated harmful stereotypes about her (especially being autistic-coded) without any form of acknowledgement or discussion about the fact.

As far as the boys went, it was hard to tell them apart sometimes--but especially Shane and Nate. These two, in particular, I was confusing for each other a lot of the time. I think readers could have benefitted a bit more had there been more solid character development differentiating the two a tad more.

As someone who lives with a depression disorder, I stand a bit neutral on the way it was portrayed within the story. I would not say it was bad because there was a lot I related to myself. Depression can be messy, it can turn a beautiful, happy day into something so dark and twisted. And that can reflect into how you treat people, yourself, and how you go about your day. When it comes down to potential suicide, I also found the portrayal in the book fairly realistic.

I did not enjoy seeing how the message shifted slightly to "we should have helped when we saw the signs." Sure, someone could have enforced help in some way. But someone has to want it, it cannot always be forced on a person; oftentimes, in my experience, that has made it worse. This is not to say there was no responsibility at all for those to step in and be there for their friends/family, but the sole responsibility did not rely on them.

I would have liked to see just a bit more world building. All of the characters live on an island, but what we received weren't the best setting or place descriptors. It made it difficult to picture at times and found myself mentally making up for the areas that lacked while reading.

I did enjoy the overall story and thought it was interesting and enrapturing. But while a story can be those things, it still needs its more solid elements too. And I feel there was a sore lacking of those in several places.

I do recommend this book because I think there is a niche group that this will talk to the most, while still in acknowledgement of its faults. I am interested to see what Lund may come up with next.

I think too much time passed and I am such a mood reader. The mood has yet to strike to read this one so I don’t have feedback.

This was...not for me. I kept reading, hoping for a twist, some redeemable aspect of the story, and I never got it. This is a story about six people (siblings, friends, lovers). 3 girls and 3 boys and when the three boys die in a plane crash, the girls are left behind with their grief. It was...not okay. Janie seems to be on page neuro diverse and treated poorly by friends, hidden by the guy she was hooking up with, and used by her friends. There is drug and alcohol abuse, underage drinking, cheating, suicidal thoughts, suicide, and a totally unexpected discussion on past lives? I just don't understand it, any of it. I wasn't here for it. Not for the complete lack of communication that could have cleared up issues, not for the way teachers and adults failed the children and not for the children themselves.

I will start by saying this book deals with a lot of heavy topics that I personally wouldn’t target at a 12+ audience

I liked that the book had a lot of different pov, but I was left with some questions I never fully got answered. I also didn’t get a psychological thriller sense from this.

This book was heartbreaking and the author has a great writing style, While the content of this book wasn’t for me I would be open to reading other work by the author

I did not get to read this book, so I feel bad about giving it a three stars but I could not give it a one lol.

DNF - I read 30% of this book, but just found it too slow to hold my interest. I really liked the individual voices of the characters and thought the story concept was good.

From my blog: Always With a Book

When I first read about this book, I was intrigued. YA is still a relatively new genre to me but I have to say the books I’ve read so far have all been really good and this is definitely one to add to that list.

This is a book about grief, death and ultimately suicide and I think it handles all these topics so well. Having it told from multiple points of view, moving back and forth in time, allows us to zero in on those feelings we have when someone we love dies and we aren’t quite sure how to process it. I loved that there was that idea of looking into the possibility of life after death – what really does happen once we die? For some, this is a way of coping and for the young girls in this book, it was their way of moving forward.

I wasn’t expecting such an emotional read when I picked this one up and while there is some element of mystery to it which I did enjoy, I do think it is marketed wrong as a thriller. Just know it’s not a happy read by any means, but still a good read and one that I am glad I picked up.

This didn’t really feel like a ‘psychological thriller’, honestly a little bit disappointing. I was really excited for the concept but it could have been executed better.

Cass, Janie, and Izzy wake up on the beach after a high school party to a small plane flying over them. They witness the plane crash into the ocean. Unfortunately there were no survivors of the three boys who were on board - Shane (Cass’ ex boyfriend), Nick (Janie’s secret friend), stand Israel (Izzy’s twin brother).

Was it suicide or an accident? Or something a little more whimsical?

Unfortunately although this book is set up to give you a mystery, there was something missing when it came to the feeling of needing to know more. I also didn’t care for any of the friendships we follow and watch build throughout this book. Nwhile it was quick paced because we follow all 6 perspectives, i just found myself feeling very meh babout it all, and i think it was due to at the end of the day already knowing the boys weren’t going to do anything with any lessons they may learn leading up to the crash.

Overall a 3/5 stars

DNF at 30%

This wasn't really for me, but I don't think it was bad by any means. Writing style just wasn't cutting it personally

A hidden gem. This book is such a quick read and just so heartbreaking. It was actually difficult to read at times, but once I was able to get in the right headspace, I really loved it.

I don't think this book is bad, per se, but it's certainly not for me.
Most notably, it was more plot-heavy and the characters weren't really defined at all. The boys were just a platter for tragedy to be served upon, and the girls didn't feel like anything more than their grief.
It was difficult to read about such intense emotions being experienced by the most nondescript characters, like I was supposed to care or identify with these empty shells. Their names blurred together so much that I began to confuse them entirely because, other than their relationships to the boys, there isn't much to differentiate them.
I'm not sure I could tell you what the plot was between the timelines my mixing up the characters, but either way it really wasn't my style.
Not really a thriller, more like an emotion study.

Book: 3/5
Audiobook: 4/5

When I read the synopsis of The Sky Above Us by Natalie Lund I was immediately intrigued because who doesn't want to read about teenagers searching for answers? This is a dark read and the general feel to me was pretty pensive and melancholy. There are multiple timelines as well as multiple viewpoints, and I definitely would have appreciated fewer POVs. I got really confused about who everyone was and had a hard time keeping them all separate in my mind, but this mostly happened with the guys as opposed to the girls. I think it was meant to be an emotional read but I didn't feel very attached to any of the characters or their storylines which made this less emotional than I was hoping for.

The conclusion was surprising, and I didn't see it coming, and the book is full of heavy, gut-wrenching topics which I am sure will resonate with plenty of readers. The main theme is suicide so if that's a trigger for you then you might want to skip this. Luckily it isn't a trigger for me, but I definitely got a different story than the one I was expecting. The Sky Above Us is described as a twisty, psychological thriller and honestly, I didn't get that feeling at all. It felt more like young adult literary fiction, and about the only twist was the very end. I did enjoy this on audio though and it is told with almost a full cast of people narrating. Kirby Heyborne, Laura Knight Keating, Brittany Pressley & Maria Liatis were the narrators, and I was happy to have Pressley on the list. She was definitely my favorite of them all, but I did enjoy the other narrators as well. This is just a really hard book to describe without giving anything away, and I recommend checking it out for yourself if you think it sounds interesting.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Unfortunately, this wasn't a story that I could connect with, nor any of the characters. It is a YA book, and my age is well beyond that, but I have read plenty of YA books where I was connected, engaged and enjoyed. Yet, I will admit the younger set may connect to this book where I could not.

There was one aspect in the story line that I was interested in, but was sidelined too much, that it wasn't enough to keep me interested. Perhaps there were just too many characters with before and after time lines going on.

In full disclosure I did not finish reading the book, I got to around 40% the way through, so maybe it improves after I stopped reading. I would not give the book a rating, but here I must, so please view my rating with what I've stated above.

A fan of thrillers I expected more but it didn't meet my expectations. Not a thriller at all. Trigger warning: Book talks about suicide.

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p><em>The Sky Above Us</em> is a YA psychological thriller that follows the events leading up to and the aftermath of three teenage boys, Israel, Shane, and Nate, dying in a plane crash. It follows Israel's twin sister Isabela, Shane's ex-boyfriend Cass, and Nate's best friend Janie as they attempt to piece together what happened (and why the boys were flying the plane), as well as the three boys in the month leading up to the plane crash.
The book had a lot of potential that was bolstered by its compelling nontraditional format. Lund seamlessly transitions between the first and third-person points of view of all six characters, as well as on a non-linear timeline that alternates between the month leading up to the plane crash and the month following it. The book also features interviews and transcripts of videos. However, even with the interesting storytelling, I had a really hard time getting into <em>The Sky Above Us</em>. It took me way too long to get through the first half (even if the last 25% was excellent), even though the format sets it up for being a quick read.</p>

There is also a lot of past life ideology interwoven into the book, and while Lund integrates it well, I found it a bit confusing and very trippy. I don't believe in reincarnation so maybe that was the problem, but even so I don't usually love trippy books, and this one just crossed the line.</p>

Went into The Sky Above Us expecting a thriller based on the description, but this is much more of a drama that handles heavy topics including suicide. It's a hard one for me to rate as I'm not sure I would have picked it up if the description felt like it fit more with the book. Definitely a good one if you want an emotional read.

This is definitely not a thriller.

It is a hard book to review, because it discusses hard topics, but in a slow kind of way.

It's a story of 6 teenagers. Three of them crash a plane and die. And the three girls that are left alive, have to deal with their grief, guilt and figure out their next steps in life.

This book is about grief and how different people deal with it. There are a lot of talk about mental health, and how it affects kids/teenagers and adults. How it can break someone down little by little. How other people tend to ignore the things that are hard to talk about - like seeing a person you love suffer, seeing someone struggle with mental health.

So many trigger warnings: talk of suicide, depression, alcohol use and abuse.

In the end I thought this book discusses all of these topics in a good way. It's true and real, even if it had a bit of imaginary creativity with the soul jumping and past lives. It is definitely not a thriller, even if we follow the story to the end to figure out what really happened to the boys, and what they chose in the end.