Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also a Star is a standalone novel. Does destiny exist? Is the course of our lives predetermined by a force we have no control over or is it our actions that define our path in life? Does the universe conspire to make miracles happen or is everything just random chance? Daniel Jae Ho Bae chooses to believe in fate for his was determined before he was born. According to his parents, he will go to Yale and become a doctor, despite any other passions he may have. Natasha Kingsley believes that life is random. Things just happen for not apparent or cosmic reason; people just have to deal with it. But the day Natasha is about to be deported, the day her life in the United States will come to an unceremonious end, she decides to take one last chance to reverse her deportation. Whether it is through fate or chance, divine guidance or luck, these two teens find themselves pushed together and spend an afternoon falling in love.
Natasha was born in Jamaica, but, at the age of eight, she and her immediate family followed her father to America. From then on, she began a small, illegal life in America. She made friends, found an interest in science, and came to see the world as one defined by facts, not fate. She made plans to graduate from high school, go to college, and decided that love is nothing but a fleeting feeling. But her entire life and worldview is derailed when her father gets a DUI. As a result, she must abandon the life she has come to know and love in America for one she cannot remember in Jamaica. On her last day in America, Natasha searches relentlessly for a way to reverse the deportation, and in her search finds Daniel, a boy convinced that love is real and fate pushes them all.
Daniel was born to South Korean parents. From when he was a child, his life was planned out: study hard, go to Yale, become a doctor. At the same time, his older brother was told to go to Harvard and become a lawyer. As a result of his parent and his older brother’s relentless bullying, he grew up to be the second best son, but everything changed when his brother gets kicked out of Harvard. Suddenly the focus is on him, and he must succeed where his brother failed. But, Daniel doesn’t know if he wants to go to Yale. He is a poet who never got the chance to dream or explore his own passions. On the day of his Yale interview, he meets Natasha, and she teaches him to embrace his poetic side and explore his passions. The Sun is Also a Star is a cute love story. The pacing is lightning fast from the beginning and remains so throughout the entire book. Even without any intense suspense, the book is page-turner. It will have you rooted to the book and excitedly flipping through pages to see what happens next.
Of course, this is only if the book is right for you. This book is not a complex and thought-provoking dive on being a teenage immigrant or second-generation immigrant in America. The book is not remarkably life-changing or deep. It is a LOVE STORY. If cutesy couples and heartwarming romance isn’t your thing, this book will be unbearably boring and there is no point in picking it up. However, if you love romance, you will love this book.
In terms of plot, there isn’t much there. All the main conflicts are established quickly, allowing the story to focus on the blooming relationship and character backstories.
The characters themselves are artfully created. While Natasha and Daniel represent opposing sides on the idea of love and fate, they are more than just personified ideals. They feel like real characters with real hopes, dreams, doubts, and fears.
In the books theme of discussing fate and coincidence, Nicola Yoon also includes small snippets of the lives of the people around them. All of these characters also feel real, and, in the few moments we have with them, we learn how their lives touched Daniel and Natasha, and how our protagonists touched them.
While all of this works to create and absolutely heartwarming story, some realism points have to be docked from this book. Our two protagonists fall in love in an absurdly short amount of time, and, each time you are reminded of how long the two have known each other, the suspension of disbelief is broken. You are ripped out of the story and begin to notice the absurdity of some of it. So many things had to go right (or in some cases, wrong) for this book to happen. It is only by chance that Daniel’s interview is on the same day as Natasha’s deportation and only by chance that they even meet at all. In the book’s attempt to discuss fate, a lot of coincidental events have to occur, but whether you find the coincidence distracting or find that it enhances the book is entirely up to your personal views as a reader.