The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Title: The Sun Is Also a Star

Author: Nicola Yoon

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary / Romance

Format: Hardcover

Length: 384 pages

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Publish Date: November 1, 2016

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Recommend: Yes

“There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.”

I think I wanted to make sure I read this book before I saw the movie. Do I still have time to go and watch it? Honestly I'm not so sure, but this is my second Nicola Yoon book that I'm happy about, so I guess it's okay to say that so far I've liked everything she's written so far.

This book was one that I could not put down when I first started it. I think the reason why I stopped was because I had to go to sleep for work the next day (boo adulting, right?) but I seriously could not put it down. The way that all of these events happened in the span of a day just made me feel like I was on some cosmic adventure that seemed almost too good to be true. It actually made me want to see if I could get someone to fall in love with me in the span of a day with those questions and all that, but I doubt it.

This book was near and dear to my heart because of a couple reasons. One, even though I'm not Jamaican, I could feel for Natasha and wanting to fix her father's mistake, not wanting to uproot her entire life to go to her birth country that she hasn't known for years. It's a scary thing to have to do that, and I felt so terrible for her. She was like me in that I don't think I would have been happy to go, and I would have done everything in my power to fix the situation. Like her, I would be working until the absolute last minute to make this change. She didn't want to accept the fact that she was no longer going to be living in America, and did everything she could to get it fixed. I admired her tenacity, even if sometimes I felt like she hid her passion for certain things because she felt like passion is what led to this mess. Not her passion, but her father's.

I fell in love with Daniel as well because he seemed like such a hopeless romantic, almost immediately falling in love with Natasha  - or maybe the idea of her, we'll see - and trying to get her to have feelings for him. Maybe if this wasn't a book and was in real life, I would think he was a douche that was being too pushy on a strange girl that didn't want his company, but I guess he could have been worse. I also think about how his dad reacted when he saw Natasha for the first time, and the stigma that Koreans don't date or marry Blacks. I've heard that too in my life, and I felt it. It made me upset that something that neither one of them could help would make their parents not be accepting of their relationship, or even their friendship. It brought me back to when I was first told by an Asian boy that I was ugly because I was Black. I may not be full Black, but that's what I look like, and that's not something I can help. Why should that determine my beauty?

But I digress.

Basically I really liked this book. While it didn't end the way you would think, I think the ending (gotta always read the epilogue no matter what) gave me a sense of hope that things will be okay for everyone involved. I love books that end in hope, even if it's not a perfect ending. Nothing is perfect in this world, but one can always hope for better days, and that's the feeling I had after reading it. I hope you like it as much as I did.