'The Sun Is Also A Star' by Nicola Yoon

 

'The Sun Is Also A Star' front cover

'The Sun Is Also A Star' by Nicola Yoon - Review

*There are NO spoilers in this review!*

Description:

Natasha:

I'm a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I'm definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won't be my story.

Daniel:

I've always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents' high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store - for both of us. 

The Universe:

Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

Goodreads Rating: 4.06        My Rating: 3.5

First Impressions

I'd heard so many great things about this book and Nicola Yoon for years now, but never actually got around to taking it off of my bookshelf! The film adaptation was also released in 2019 but I have managed to avoid any spoilers and wanted to save the story for myself - same goes with 'Everything, Everything' - and thought now is the time! 

I love how the book is separated into smaller chapters, it makes it a lot easier and less daunting to read for me since I can set a certain goal for how much I want to read at one time. At the same time, I didn't feel like there wasn't enough detail or that it was rushed at all! Parts that needed more depth had their own mini chapter, as well as extra characters that played their own role in the story: it has been set out really beautifully! 

From the start, I was already learning about different backgrounds (Natasha being an illegal Jamaican immigrant and Daniel being of Korean descent) from my own and what they may experience as a result of that, such as differing opportunities and racial inequality. 

Daniel and Natasha

Daniel is quite the believer in fate and meant-to-be, while feeling the pressure from his parents to become a doctor. I think there can be a lot of romanticism of obsession in young adult fiction that just gives me the creeps a little bit... He followed Natasha and was so persistent about falling in love with each other even though she was clearly not very interested or comfortable at the beginning - it just rubbed me up the wrong way. That being said, he was still somewhat likable which was annoying but I suppose people like that are charming.

Natasha doesn't really believe in love and focuses on the science behind everything rather than the notions or feelings. I thought she was quite tough on her father, personally, but I'm a big softie and wouldn't dream of purposefully being negative towards someone else! Throughout the course of the book, Natasha definitely opens up tonnes more, so I could learn more about why she feels the way she does and what she has been through to get to this point. 

Final Thoughts

I adored the other characters that came into the story as they all had such a significance from minor interactions and reiterated how everything is a knock-on effect for something else! Irene, Attorney Fitzgerald, Samuel (Natasha's dad), and Hannah Winter are a handful of these characters. It was so infuriating to know that they could've walked past Daniel at this point, or just missed Natasha at another, but it was SO clever at the same time! Nicola Yoon did such an amazing job.

The final chapter was AMAZING! Some epilogues can feel underwhelming or weird in certain books and I was so worried that it would be the case in this one, but I wasn't disappointed in the slightest! It was all about a series of coincidences, or fate, or whatever you'd like to call it, so it was lovely that this was consistent all the way through!

Conclusion

'The Sun Is Also A Star' was such a lovely and easy read while still handling really important topics in a mature way. Nicola Yoon really emphasises the importance of the decisions you make because of the effects it will then have on others: a negative will only cause a ripple of negativity, a positive will cause a ripple of positivity. It was so interesting to read about so many different characters and how they were involved in this particular day, as well as how different it would have been if they weren't involved! 

I do still think Daniel was a little creepy and obsessive towards Natasha, not to mention being so cringy with one-liners, but I'm such a sucker for romance that I still enjoyed it! I absolutely loved Yoon's writing style and cannot WAIT to read 'Everything, Everything' which is calling out to me from my bookshelf...

Let me know what you think! :)