The Sun Is Also A Star Review

Hello lovelies! So I’m once again very behind on reviewing popular YA books. What a surprise. Anyway, this one came highly recommended, and I’ve been wanting to read it for a while, so I figured this summer was as good a time as any.

I read this book in one day during a family road trip into the mountains, so I’m automatically gonna associate it with that road trip and give it 2 points for good vibes. It fit the mood perfectly and I had fun reading it and spending time with my family.

There may be some spoilers at the end, but I’ll try to mark them.

Without further ado, here’s my review 😉

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

Goodreads Summary
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?

Characters
The characters in this story initially feel a little one dimensional. Natasha is very logical and holds science to be the standard of truth. Daniel wants more out of life and is willing to believe more to get it. However, as the story progresses, they become so much more than that. They are mixtures of their pasts and their futures, a conglomeration of family history and culture and personal experiences and values. Natasha is struggling with her family’s deportation and, at the beginning of the story, is struggling to find hope for her life. She’s scared, brave, cynical, and doing all she can for her family. As the story progresses, she learns to hope and opens herself up to the idea of something more, while maintaining her firm belief in science.
Daniel fights his family’s racist mentality and expectations for his life. He wants to have a career as a poet rather than as a doctor. His relationship with his brother is strained, and he wants more from life than science and simple facts. He begins the story full of hope but resigned to the fact that he will do what his family expects of him regardless. Towards the end of the book, he realizes sometimes it’s worth it to just go after your own dreams, even if things don’t always end up well.
Both Daniel and Natasha were well-rounded, fleshed out characters with varying opinions and personalities. They were opposite and the same in more ways than one. I found the book did an excellent job letting us get to know them in just one day.

Plot
I enjoyed the romance in this book, and that the two MCs’ opinions on life were both accurate. Spoilers: Not everything worked out for them at first, which lined up with Natasha’s worldview, but they did find one another again, which matched up with Daniel’s thoughts. End of Spoilers.
The family dynamics were an excellent addition to the story. They really played into the way each character behaved, and we understand the way they look at life is based on their personal experiences. I loved the way Yoon worked so many little stories about so many different people into one big story. She showed how each person’s choices affect so many others, sometimes in unexpected ways. We can have hope and fight for our dreams, but they don’t always turn out how we wanted. It was realistic and hopeful and beautiful.
Side note: One thing I didn’t love about the romance was how focused it was on sex at times. Like they straight up just met each other that day but wanted to get it on six hours later? Felt a little weird for me and made the relationship seem cheap (Spoiler: they don’t end up having sex but it still felt weird. Also, the number of times Natasha mentioned Daniel’s butt, like oh my gosh girl we get it, you like his ass, we know already. End of Spoiler.)

Writing
Overall, I enjoyed Yoon’s writing style. She shifts her narrative voice with every character, which can be difficult to do. I applaud her for making everyone sound unique. I also liked the way she gave background information and histories of various side characters to show how their decisions affected those around them. It’s not an especially rich or descriptive style, but I liked it anyway. It’s easy to read and suits the purposes of the story.

Content Warning
There was a fair bit of language in this one, with repeated use of f**k, s**t, b***h, and the like, as well as the use of Jesus’ name as a swear word. I’ve seen worse, but I didn’t appreciate it.
There are also a few sexual innuendos. The main romance doesn’t get beyond passionate kissing, but it kinda had a sexual vibe in that scene with the way Yoon described everything. I dk it’s just my opinion of how it came across.

Overall, I enjoyed this story and recommend it as a cute romance with some deeper meaning and well-developed characters. I didn’t agree with all of Yoon’s ideas about God, but they matched the characters’ worldviews, which I appreciated. Also, yay for an immigrant author writing about an immigrant character. I give the book 4 out of 5 stars.

Have you read The Sun Is Also A Star? What did you think? Let me know in the comments 😉

Have an adventurous day!

Love,