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The Sun Is Also a Star

Nicola Yoon

Start date: June 1, 2017

Finish date: June 30, 2017

Discussion: Monthly Group Reads

Why we're reading this: June is Classism. The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
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What Members Thought

Mar 29, 2018 Puck rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: romance, disappointment, people-of-colour, young-adult, contemporary

This book unfortunately wasn’t for me: the insta-love was too strong. I was so annoyed by Daniel mentioning “it’s fate!” every two sentences that I couldn’t enjoy the story and its other themes of immigration and identity anymore. Insta-love blocked me every step of the way.

This is a book for the romantics: Boy meets Girl and their first meeting is so amazing, that the boy is convinced they are destined to be together. Natasha – the Jamaican immigrant and sceptic science nerd – doesn’t buy it, This book unfortunately wasn’t for me: the insta-love was too strong. I was so annoyed by Daniel mentioning “it’s fate!” every two sentences that I couldn’t enjoy the story and its other themes of immigration and identity anymore. Insta-love blocked me every step of the way.

This is a book for the romantics: Boy meets Girl and their first meeting is so amazing, that the boy is convinced they are destined to be together. Natasha – the Jamaican immigrant and sceptic science nerd – doesn’t buy it, so Daniel – a Korean-American poet trying to stand up against his parents– aims to make her believe in love at first/second sight during the whole day.

“We're kindling amid lightning strikes, a lit match and dry wood, fire danger signs and a forest waiting to be burned.”

Unfortunately for this book, I’m not a romantic. I don’t believe love at first or second sight exists. Love is something that slowly grows and develops out of mutual trust, support and friendship: not out of a chance encounter. Lust and crushes grow out of that, not “true love” which is meant to last.

But that’s not the route Yoon is taking, because as soon Natasha’s sceptic opinion has crumbled thanks to Daniel’s good looks, love is all these characters talk about and the story becomes a draaaaaaaaag. Everything – from Daniel’s Yale interview to this book’s central conflict of Natasha’s deportation – falls away in light of this sudden world-changing romance.

“I didn't know you this morning, and now I don't remember not knowing you.”

The only reason I stuck around because the topic of immigration is worked out well. In the chapters about Natasha’s father and Daniel’s parents we see where they come from and why their current ideas about their children and their future are so unbending. In their eyes, a good-paying job and a partner from the same background is the only way to stability and happiness.
It reminded me of the episode “Parents” in the Netflix-series Master of None, but even my white grandparents were very upset when I switched from studying Political Science to Art History. The relationship between (immigrant) parents and children is worked out beautiful in this novel, which is the only element of the story that I found emotionally moving.

So I spend the biggest part of this book rolling my eyes at the romance, and since that element is meant to carry most of the plot, I didn’t enjoy this book.
Many others did however, so if you’re a romantic at heart, this book fits you better than me. ...more

28 likes · Like · see review

Sep 08, 2016 Kathy Miller rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-books

Author, Nicola Yoon’s storytelling is unique in that she uses multiple POV’s and does so successfully. Most of the story takes place in one day. The two major protagonists, Natasha and Daniel, are both on their way to appointments. Natasha to the immigration office and Daniel on his way to a college interview. They meet on a sidewalk in Manhattan and this is where their stories converge.

Natasha and her family are due to be deported from the US to Jamaica in a matter of hours. Natasha and her ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Feb 11, 2017 Toni FGMAMTC rated it liked it

Shelves: young-adult, black-mc, interracial-romance, woc, east-asian-mc

3.5 stars

This book gave me two points of view that I've never seen before. One of the main characters is a boy who's parents came from Korea. He's second-generation. Since he grew up in America, he has some disconnect from the way his parents think about things. The other main character is a girl whose family came from Jamaica to America when she was eight. Since she was so young, America is really the only place she knows as home. Her family came on visas and never left so they are in the count ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

May 20, 2018 Susan Bazzett-Griffith rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya-kid-stuff-i-love, great-fiction-and-not-great-fiction

3.5 stars- half feel-good/light romance, 1/4 teen angsty YA, 1/4 interesting asides about interconnectivity, fate, and choices, Nicola Yoon's The Sun Is Also a Star is a really good YA book. I needed something light, and while this love story of a teenaged undocumented Jamaican immigrant girl and a first generation teenaged Korean-Amerian boy had some heavier undertones of racial disparities and kind of heavy-handed motifs/thematic elements, it was still lighter than the nonfiction depressing po ...more

2 likes · Like · see review