The Sun Is Also a Star: Nicola Yoon || Review

"The sheer number of actions and reactions it's taken to form our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, is astonishing. The number of things that had to go exactly right is overwhelming. Compared to that, what is falling in love? A series of small coincidences that we say means everything because we want to believe that our tiny lives matter on a galactic scale. But falling in love doesn't even begin to compare to the formation of the universe."

The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon 

Release Date: November 1st, 2016
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Purchase: Amazon// Barnes and Noble// Book Depository
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?

I was originally going to rate this three stars but then that epilogue happened, I started crying, and now here I am with messed up makeup, lowkey hating just how much I loved this. 

Here's the thing, right: by all means, I should've despised this book. Nothing gets me more annoyed than instalove, and contemporaries are pretty much the bane of my existence. But here I am !! Crying over a sappy, "set in only a day," romance and feeling like I almost believe in the concept of The One™. I can't deal with all these fluffy feelings. 

How dare you do this to me, Nicola Yoon.

I haven't read Nicola's other book, Everything, Everything so this was my first time experiencing her writing, and I was pleasantly surprised. She has a really gorgeous, quick-flowing prose and her descriptions were so beautifully written. I wasn't expecting the other POV's outside of Natasha and Daniel, and I thought they worked so well and really brought a whole other element to the book. It shifted it from feeling like a regular, flat contemporary, to giving it a more unique air. I liked the quick bits of history interspersed, and having the ability to learn things I had absolutely no idea about. The multiple POV's was also such an interesting way of seeing how people around Natasha + Daniel were affected by them. 

And I think that's a large part of why I ended up loving The Sun Is Also a Star. It had this whole multi-POV, multi-verse theory running throughout it, and I've always been obsessed with the idea that for whatever choice you make, there's some other realm where your story plays out where you choose the other path. There were several instances where the characters paused to reflect on the actions and choices they'd taken that day, and how it had led them to where they were now. It gave the book a far more serious undertone and sense of self-awareness that really made you sit back and think. And I've always loved those kind of broad-scope stories; where you see how the little daily interactions one has with others affects them and can have consequences. It made the whole book so much deeper and provided a neat perspective that I absolutely loved.

It was also so nice to read such a diverse YA contemporary romance. Natasha was Jamaican (!!) and her whole family had this really heart-wrenching story + look into the hardships of being illegal immigrants. Daniel was Korean-American (!!) and also presented such an in-depth look at the struggles of immigrants, and the pressure and expectations they face. 

The relationship between Natasha and Daniel wasn't my favorite, if only for the fact of how fast it moved, but the way that Yoon wrote it grabbed my attention. To me, it read like the duo knew that what they felt was largely based on this insta-love feel, and lust/attraction, for each other. But then they had this progression as Daniel conducted his experiment, and they sat down and started learning more about each other. It punched these little holes in the idea that attraction between two characters should immediately be labeled as insta-love and that they can't move past said attraction to actually form a sturdy relationship. Don't get me wrong, they still only spent one day with each other, and Daniel was already proclaiming that he loved Natasha. But I don't know? Something about Natasha's skepticism (which often reflected my own daily feelings toward soulmates/lasting relationships), and their combined efforts to discuss love in a scientific way, brought it out of the realm of cheesy for me and into a place where it felt more plausible. There was this notion throughout the book that somebody could come into your life for only a day, and change you, and I just really loved that, damn it. 

This was definitely not a book I was expecting to love, and I was mainly in it for the shortness so that I could try and catch up on my reading challenge. #NoShame. But it turned out to be something so lovely and thought-provoking, and while it wasn't perfect, it gave me so many things to ponder over, and sappy little romantic notions to muse on. It softened my heart a little bit, and I kind of love that. 

*4 out of 5 stars*
★★★★☆








LET'S CHAT! Have you read The Sun Is Also a Star? What did you think? And how do you usually like your romances? Any favorite tropes? (I'm a sucker for hate-to-love) Tell me all the things!