How Does Lennie Cope With Loss In 'The Sky Is Everywhere'?

Lennie in 'The Sky Is Everywhere' deals with loss in a raw, messy way that feels painfully real. She swings between overwhelming grief and desperate attempts to feel anything else, which leads her into impulsive relationships with both Toby and Joe. Writing poetry becomes her lifeline—she scribbles verses on scraps of paper and leaves them scattered around town like breadcrumbs of her pain. Music helps too; playing her clarinet lets her channel emotions too big for words. What strikes me is how her grief isn’t linear—some days she’s numb, other days she’s furious, and occasionally she finds bittersweet comfort in memories. The book shows healing isn’t about ‘moving on’ but learning to carry loss differently.

As someone who’s studied grief narratives, Lennie’s coping mechanisms in 'The Sky Is Everywhere' fascinate me. Her poetry isn’t just catharsis—it’s a dialogue with her dead sister Bailey. Those scattered poems act as both memorial and confession, especially the ones addressed to Toby, Bailey’s boyfriend. The physicality of her grief stands out too; she wears Bailey’s clothes, smells her perfume, even kisses Toby partly to feel closer to her sister.

Her relationship with Joe is equally telling. With him, Lennie tries to reinvent herself as someone unmarked by loss, which backfires spectacularly. Their musical connection (he’s a musician too) creates moments of respite, but she sabotages it because joy feels like betrayal. The grandmother’s garden becomes another coping mechanism—tending flowers mirrors Lennie’s struggle to nurture life amid death. What the book does brilliantly is show grief as chaotic self-discovery rather than a tidy process.

Lennie’s grief in 'The Sky Is Everywhere' is like watching someone navigate a storm without a compass. She copes by clinging to what’s familiar—Bailey’s hoodie, their shared bedroom, even Toby’s presence—because losing those feels like losing her sister twice. But there’s also rebellion in her grief; hooking up with Toby isn’t just about love, it’s about defiance, like she’s testing how much pain she can endure.

The contrast between her two love interests reveals her fractured state. Toby represents the past—their intimacy is steeped in shared loss. Joe symbolizes possibility, which terrifies her because moving forward means accepting Bailey’s absence. The most poignant coping mechanism? Lennie’s habit of writing poems to Bailey on random surfaces—it’s as if she’s trying to bridge the impossible gap between the living and the dead. The book doesn’t offer solutions, just honest glimpses of grief’s jagged edges.