This author is an auto-read for me and this book did not disappoint! I loved the characters in this novel with their unique and quirky qualities. This made the story feel authentic and had me rooting for them throughout the book. In addition to the well-developed characters, I loved her beautifully descriptive and sensory language that felt like being wrapped in a cozy blanket. It was the perfect cure for a book slump!

Not me crying after finishing a Jandy Nelson book, never…

This book was well worth the 10 years it has taken for Nelson to craft this absolute masterpiece of a book. Her writing and characters have no match. This story is so magical and dramatic but also felt like the best warm hug after a long day. I absolutely loved it.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers/Dial Books for the eARC.

I fell in love with Jandy Nelson's writing in her two previous books, "The Sky is Everywhere" and "I'll Give You the Sun," and was ecstatic to get an ARC of this latest novel.

The book revolves around the Fall family and the fallout after their father disappeared years ago.

The three children each have an encounter with a mysterious girl with rainbow hair and tattoos, and she becomes somewhat of a puzzle they each try to solve.

The characters in this book are practically incandescent. They glow within the pages and make their way into your heart. The pacing in the beginning is a bit slow, but it absolutely worth it to stick to it and read all about the heartbreaking and enchanting history of the Fall family.

It is beautiful to watch each of the Fall kids, Dizzy, Miles, and Wynton, go on their journeys of self-exploration and step into who they truly are.

This is a truly heartwarming read and one for people of all ages, despite being categorized as a YA novel. Thank you to Jandy Nelson for writing this beautiful book and to #Netgalley for this much beloved ARC of #whentheworldtipsover

After hearing amazing thinks about Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun, I was so excited when NetGalley approved me for this one. Unfortunately, while it certainly had some beautiful, quotable moments, this novel took a while to get into and I almost quit several times. Also, it was LONG - around 550 pages - and I felt like it could have been shortened quite a bit.

I did love the characters, especially the Fall children, Wynton, Miles, and Dizzy, but ultimately I don’t think this book was for me. Nelson weaves fairytale/fantasy into the story which I’m sure was supposed to be fun and whimsical, but honestly left me feeling confused half the time 😅

If you’re a huge Nelson fan, maybe you’ll love this one? I can’t speak to that, as this was my first one.

"When the World Tips Over" by Jandy Nelson is a book that left me with mixed feelings. While Nelson’s signature lyrical prose and rich, sensory descriptions are present, the story itself felt a bit too chaotic and overstuffed for my taste. The characters, though intriguing, seemed to be drowning in a sea of melodrama and mystical elements that didn’t quite mesh together. Dizzy's spirit-seeing and cake-baking quirks, Miles' quest for love, and Wynton’s musical ambitions all felt like they belonged in separate novels. The introduction of the rainbow-haired girl, meant to be a catalyst, added to the confusion rather than clarifying the plot. Despite the beautiful writing and some poignant moments, the book’s sprawling narrative and convoluted subplots left me feeling more exhausted than enchanted. It’s an okay read, but not quite the masterpiece I was hoping for. 🌈📖

This book simply wasn’t for me. “When the World Tips Over” is a family drama told from the perspectives of the Fall children. And while the children are fascinating and the drama was interesting, the way this was written didn’t work for me. Magical realism is hit or miss and this one was a miss. I found myself bored and flipping through just hoping to get to the good part, and it never came.

Thanks Net Galley and Penguin for the eARC.

My absolute favorite book so far this year!!! I wish it didn’t have to be labeled YA though. I’m 67 years old and found it to be a treasure filled with so many wonderful ideas and storylines. All the amazing characters!!! Such voices!!! Bits of heartbreak and bits of magic. Such is life. Can’t wait to purchase a hardcover and add it to my favorites shelf. So well done.

This is a tale of family spanning generations, revealing family stories, secrets, tragedies, and the struggles of dysfunctional relationships and parental abandonment. It delves into the discovery of hidden truths and the journey to find a family that accepts, understands, and loves you for who you are.

The narrative is a blend of intense, heartbreaking, and heartwarming moments. It traverses various themes, some of which are unveiled through letters from the past. Having some letters from my grandparents, I understand their significance and the sense of connection they provide.

This story weaves together the lives of people connected by blood, marriage, love, or deep friendship. It spans many years, exploring the repercussions of abandonment and the joy of finding a place to call home.

I made sure to read her first book before reading this one, even though they are not connected. I love her style and this was a great story.

tldr: I adored this book. Relatable characters and engaging storytelling mechanisms, 4.5*

I stayed up late last night rambling sporadically in my Pages app trying to write a Real Review™️ for this, but writing in any way other than stream-of-consciousness makes my brain short circuit. Hopefully this review is somewhere between that and something of actual form/substance, but I’m giving up on trying to achieve the latter. I also don’t know how to talk about what I loved most about this book without heavily spoiling it, so maybe that will come once the book is officially released.

When the World Tips Over opens with twelve-year-old Dizzy Fall having been “divorced” by her best friend, being bullied at school, and then narrowly avoiding being run over by a truck thanks to a rainbow-haired angel (Dizzy’s word for her) who throws her out of harm’s way. These first couple chapters admittedly had me nervous. The book felt very middle grade at this point due to the child POV (which I didn’t yet know was not the only POV), the writing (fitting for said child POV but not pleasant to read as an adult), and the “fantasia” of it all. By the end of Dizzy’s next chapter, though, my nervousness began to make way for intrigue as her family was introduced and tensions among them rapidly escalated. And then just a couple pages into Miles’s first POV chapter, I became properly hooked.
I can’t get into what I loved so much about Miles right now, since that would involve spoilers and because Goodreads reviews are public and I don’t need people I know irl potentially reading certain things about me, but I will say that I related to Miles a shocking amount. Things I have felt but could never properly verbalize or admit were explored here in such a validating and comforting way. Miles’s journey was the highlight of the novel for me.
As for the other characters, they mostly felt just as real as Miles, which is a feat given the aforementioned “fantasia” of it all. There’s Cassidy, the rainbow-haired girl, who wound up being my second favorite character and much more thoroughly developed than I thought she was going to be. And there’s Dizzy, who was maybe the least consequential character, but I found her quest for “pertinent information regarding existence” relatable and endearing, and eventually I realized her middle-grade-coded POV was effective in lightening the load of some of the heavier moments/themes. Wynton, Dizzy and Miles’s older brother, was kind of robbed of a proper POV, but I still got a lot out of his limited time on page. Then there’s the parents of these kids; they are all incredibly flawed people who made some appalling decisions, but we’re also shown enough of their coming of age to understand why they made those decisions. It’s like when you get to hear your own parents’ origin stories and it suddenly becomes a lot harder to hate them; they’re just like us for real!
While the characters are by far the thing I love most about WTWTO, the story itself deserves some praise too. I was kept engrossed by the gradual reveals of “pertinent information regarding [the Falls’] existence,” given to us mainly in the form of fairytales/fables; the kinda-sorta mixed media; the variety of POVs (in terms of both format and character); and the mildly fantastical, deterministic nature of everything that happens. That magical element added a welcome level of intrigue to what might otherwise have been a standard generational trauma tale. I didn’t love every instance of magic, but I did appreciate that each of the kids had a unique quirk and the ways in which their quirks occasionally intertwined; one of these abilities was utilized in a very clever way that I didn’t see coming. And while the ending was kind of also the climax of the book, which is rarely my ideal, (almost) every character had a complete arc. Their stories were tied up beautifully in a rainbow-colored bow just before–some during!–that big ending.
Gushing aside, I do have some minor complaints I guess. First, the writing, while often pretty/poetic/poignant, has its fair share of grimace-inducing attempts to be Quirky™️ (e.g. there’s a character who’s supposed to be sooooo hot but dresses like Patrick Stump in the 2000s, and he doesn’t have the excuse of being like 40 years old or living in the 2000s). But that’s more of a general YA problem, I don’t really hold it against this book. Secondly, some of the characters in the mythologized family history tales felt cartoonishly villainous, and while that is clearly just the nature of the storytelling techniques used in those parts, I would have liked if they’d been given some of the nuance the present-day characters received. And that’s all I can think to complain about LMAO. Love when the shortest part of my review is the criticisms! Usually I can yap with ease about all the elements of a story that didn’t work for me, so this is a welcome anomaly.
Now, who would I recommend this to? Obviously, anyone who loved Nelson’s previous work(s) should find something to love here too. This story is similar to I’ll Give You the Sun in its themes and some of its character arcs, just with an expanded cast of characters and maybe a bit more focus on plot and worldbuilding. Though I will say if you had a problem with the bold metaphors in that book, those have been taken to the next level toward actual magical realism (for lack of a better term, sorry) in this book, so beware. I’d also recommend this to anyone who loves a coming of age story, who sometimes (or always) feels like they’re locked away in a room inside themselves, whose family struggles to openly communicate their feelings, who has experienced anything, really. There are a lot of relatable topics covered here! I guess I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who completely hates YA, or anyone who might not be in the mood for a feel-good read, or anyone who likes their stories to be firmly grounded in reality. Also content warnings for homophobia, bullying, brief SA, drug and alcohol use/abuse, abusive parents, and mostly-off-page physical violence

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Penguin Teen for the eARC. I know this was made available to anyone with a NG account, but still it feels so special to receive an early release in any way, and I’m so glad this was my first ever NetGalley read. Also, any quotes I used in this review are not from the final version of the book

"I think it’s possible to live our lives without believing in destiny, without feeling it at work in the choices we make, or the choices that are made for us. But it feels impossible to tell the story of our lives without it. Stories give our lives structure, and that structure is destiny."

I have read and loved both of Jandy Nelson's books. But the last one came out ten years ago when I was reading more Young Adult so I wasn't sure I would love this one as much.

But I am so glad to say that I was completely wrong.

The thing that's so amazing about this book is that on the surface, there's nothing special about the book. It's about a family with three kids. They are each struggling in their own way. The dad has left. The kids are struggling. And then one of them has an accident.

That's pretty much the story.

But of course that's not it. Because Jandy Nelson wrote this book and she's nothing short of magic. Her writing is nothing short of magic. This book is poetry. It's weaves into your soul just the same way all her stories do. It makes you feel deeply and it makes you fall in love with each of the characters. It makes you realize people are complex and so beautiful and so flawed all at the same time.

"I do believe now that when the world tips over, joy spills out with all the sorrow. But you have to look for it."

And it gives you hope. It always gives you hope.

Yet again, she made me love her book with all my heart and soul. It was worth the wait.

with gratitude to netgalley and Penguin Young Readers Group for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

When the World Tips Over is a classic Jandy Nelson story, packed to the brim with a cast of wacky and unique characters who all bring their own unique sense of self and damaged pasts together to propel the story forward.

The first thing I will say is this story made me feel insanely emotional, in fact I think I was brought to tears by every piece of writing from Bernadette's point of view. There was a lot of raw emotion in the story and it was written in a skilful manner that tore at my heart. Additionally, the mode of writing really propelled the story along, through letters, emails, transcripts and the like, it made the story really interesting to read and changed things up a lot. The plot of the story was wild, the connections and the twists and turns were insane. I didn't see any of them coming and I feel like they fried my brain a little bit.

I really enjoyed this novel, each character had a really personal struggle. I wish I had a little bit more closure on each of the characters at the end, I would've liked a little more time with all the Falls, just to make sure they were ok, because quite frankly I feel like they've been through enough.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Teen for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review, these thoughts are all my own.

first thank you to netgalley and penguin random house for the advanced reader copy 🤸✨

I enjoyed I’ll Give You the Sun, but I definitely gave up on another book by Jandy Nelson once we hit the 6 year mark. So, I was pleasantly surprised when this showed up as an upcoming release!

When the World Tips Over is a magical realist family saga (think East of Eden but with actual curses). Over the course of the book, families hurt each other and reunite all with the crackle of magic in the background.

Does that sound like a lot? Yes, and you can painfully tell on the page. The book is very, very messy, and it was hard for me to keep the stories straight. As a result, also, the characters are pretty shallow — especially Cassidy, who, despite a tragic backstory, is clearly a manic pixie dream girl. The romantic partnerships are also similarly superficial, which is a result of both insta love tropes and invocation of fate as a reason to be together (I.e., we are meant to be!). This tries to eschew the typical foundation of intimacy — time — but instead I kept asking why these characters were drawn to each other and why they should be together in the first place. And I ended the novel without that question answered. For a book that is 528 pages, there was definitely space for character development (other than for Miles and Wynton!)

I have always loved Jandy Nelson’s writing because it is so vivid. Her writing style is just like the covers of her books; it’s as if she can capture the world in technicolor. But without a semi-organized plot to back it up, her novel strays into the direction of purple prose and gets lost among the weeds. She is incapable of writing a purely bad novel — this one alone caused me to feel more than I had in weeks — but I left wondering what or who this was all for. Family sagas are often beautiful, interconnected stories. Without a strong direction (or at least a semblance of one), however, they just end up confusing.

Jandy Nelson's writes books in a the most addictive way. I was so excited to read this book when I first heard about it because I loved "I'll give you the sun." I read it when it first came out as a teenager and it exposed me to so many different levels of YA books. It was the "New Adult" genre before there was a New Adult genre. I ended up feeling the same about this book! I I simply devoured it. This is a long book, and the pacing at the beginning is a little slow which caught me off guard at first, but eventually I couldn't put it down. Nelson's writing is very lyrical and creates wonderful images of the characters. It's whimsical and my favorite part of reading this book. It did take me awhile to form my thoughts and opinions after reading it because that. There is a very large cast of characters to keep track of but you can't help but be interested and in love with every single one. I think the plot is a little scattered at times because of this, but I'd rather have great writing and solid characters over a smooth plot. Thank you Netgalley for the advanced reader’s e-book copy of When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson.

5/5 stars. This book was beautiful. Compelling character, an inticing story and some of the prettiest prose I have read this year. I LOVED this. Thank you NetGalley for the arc, I am so lucky to have been able to read this! Everyone go read it when it comes out!!

I might be able to put more coherent thoughts together later, but WOW has Jandy Nelson done it again. Jandy Nelson is masterful storyteller with such a distinct writing style that scratches my brain in just the right way.

Felix says he moves into books when he reads them and that's what it felt like experiencing this book. These characters are so vivid and complete, and I selfishly want more of them (even though this book is already 500 pages!)

OMG. How I loved this book. I feel beyond lucky to be able to have been able to read this. (Especially since I requested this on a whim after seeing people talk about being excited for it.)

This was told in such a unique and fun way. The characters were so vivid and distinct. Perfect Miles. The Rainbow Haired Girl. DIZZY. I was hooked from the beginning.

This story covers so many vast topics and is done beautifully. The Silent World. The Gloom Room. It was just *chefs kiss*

This book is not going to be for everyone. Magical Realism aside, I think some might struggle with how the “family curse” played into the last two generations. It does feel a tiny bit like a scapegoat to try to explain some things.

I believe that Jandy Nelson is one of the most important YA authors of this generation. To be able to write such complex, compelling, and unique stories, but make them feel universal to all is can’t be an easy feat, yet she makes it seem just that. I’ll never not recommend I’ll Give You the Sun and I’m so excited to add this to the list. Absolutely beautiful! I am in awe.

I really enjoyed this story and the uniqueness of each character. The magical realism was very beautifully written - some of my favorite parts were the "in the time of forever" tales. The addition of elements like personalized letters to tell the story kept my interest through some of the longer chapters. With that being said, there were several points in the book regarding family history and keeping track of lineage that muddled my brain a bit. I felt the ending was a bit drawn out, however, the writing was so well done I often did not mind. An overall lovely story of family, love, and forgiveness.

Many thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

The writing of this book, the collage style that slowly unfurls, kept me intrigued from the very beginning. I loved that different parallels and connections woven throughout the book!