The Sun Is Also a Star By Nicola Yoon
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Fiction
Pages: 384 pages
Published: November 1st 2016
Publisher: Delacorte Press
My Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars
Synopsis: 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?
My Thoughts: So this is one of the books I read for the OWLS Magical Readathon. I have been wanting to pick it up since I heard they were turning it into a movie. So I was excited to finally get to this one. Now after reading it, I really wished I looked into the plot more because I would have known I wasn’t going to enjoy it. I really am not a fan of instalove books. Not only is this book that but it all takes place over the course of one day. I just found it to be very unbelievable. I did want to dnf it but at the same time I didn’t want to find another book with star in the title so I sucked it up. Technically this book wasn’t even a required reading for me but I did want to attempt to complete all of the OWLS. Anyway let’s go back to the book.
So I have to say one of the things I wasn’t a fan of and that I didn’t see people really talk about in their reviews is Daniel and how creepy he was in the beginning. So in the beginning of the book these characters don’t know each other. They are both dealing with separate things which I will get into. The way they meet is Natasha is having this moment where she’s just really into her music. She’s so into it that she doesn’t realize people are starring. Daniel just happens to be one of those people and Natasha catches his attention. So he decides to follow her. They end up having an interaction and then say bye to each other. It just so happens they are going the same way and then bam he saves her from a car that was almost about to hit her. Nobody ever mentioned how he was following her before. I feel him saving her makes people forget that not too long ago he was following her. So from the start I wasn’t a huge fan of him.
I liked these characters more when they were alone. I cared about their seperate stories than when they were together. Natasha is a Jamaican immigrant whose family is about to get deported. Daniel is Korean who was born in the United States but his parents originated from Korea and don’t want their sons to have to go through what they did so they have a set path for them. Daniel is getting ready for an interview with Yale in hopes of going there to become a doctor. However Daniel doesn’t want to be a doctor, he wants to be a poet. I was very interested in those two stories. So I was sad when those stories stopped and we had to read about these two teenagers possibly falling in love with each other.
I did enjoy that not only did we get the perspective of Daniel and Natasha but we also got perspectives from people they knew, people in passing, time and distance, eyes and other things. I thought that was very interesting. When it came to chapters about eyes it was a bit of scientific information. Which I really enjoyed since Natasha was very big into science. So I thought that was a nice element added to the story. I also liked getting to know some of these other characters. Sure some of them didn’t have a big part in the story but I like getting a little sneak peak into someone’s life. Sometimes when I walk down the street I think of people I pass or that I know and how while I’m living my life, they’re out living theirs. So I begin wonder what they’re doing or where that person’s going. These random chapters made me think of that.
When we got to the end I feel the story got a lot more realistic. I liked that because with the way things were going I was wondering if that would be the case. I was hoping for different things. There was a bit of an alternate ending which I actually liked. We got to see a small character from the beginning of the story reappear which was nice. If this story wasn’t an instalove story and focused on the characters separately, I would have ended up liking it a lot more. I honestly felt pretty bored reading them together. I feel this normally would have been a quick read for me. Since I couldn’t get into the story, it ended up taking me a bit longer to read. Also was kinda hoping for illustrations from Nicola’s husband in this book. He did illustrations for her book, Everything, Everything, so I thought this book might have drawings too. If I knew sooner I would have picked up the audio of the book.
So I don’t think I’m going to be watching the movie when it comes out in theater. I might pick it up once it comes out to dvd to see how it is. I know most people loved this book and I’m really glad you did. This was a book I wanted to enjoy but just didn’t do it for me.
Have you guys ended up reading this book? If so what were your thoughts on it. If not, is this book on your TBR? Are you planning to read it? Let me know in the comments.
Bookish In Bed
Bookish In Bed 
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