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The Sun Is Also a Star

Nicola Yoon

Start date: April 1, 2017

Finish date: April 30, 2017

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Dec 26, 2016 Diane McPhail rated it liked it

I read The Sun Is Also A Star as a voluntary advance reader. From the jacket blurb, I had high expectations of this novel and the level of sophistication I would find. The novel fit the blurb description and the intriguing promise of its title only loosely. Prepared to encounter a young woman intensely interested in science and a young man in poetry, I assumed the two characters would be knowledgable and would introduce readers to the rich intricacies their interests involve. On that note I was I read The Sun Is Also A Star as a voluntary advance reader. From the jacket blurb, I had high expectations of this novel and the level of sophistication I would find. The novel fit the blurb description and the intriguing promise of its title only loosely. Prepared to encounter a young woman intensely interested in science and a young man in poetry, I assumed the two characters would be knowledgable and would introduce readers to the rich intricacies their interests involve. On that note I was quite disappointed. The "opposing" life interests are simply used as a plot device to give the impression of a reason for difference--other than one being American-Korean and the other an undocumented black Jamaican.

I found the book highly readable, though flawed. It is written in extremely short chapters, in alternating narrative voices, sometimes those of various characters, sometimes in abstract voices of the Universe, or History, or the Future. It is uninteresting device. Though unrealistic in the constant interweaving of coincidence, the well-told story kept me reading. It is not great literature, but it is a good story, well told, that holds you in the way good stories can do.

The plot is intricately devised, the language fluid and at times quite beautiful in its simplicity. The subplot around an attorney whose personal failings also fail the young woman in the face of her threatened deportation was difficult for me, not so much in believability, but in the offhand manner it handles the devastating way in which he also fails his wife and children. True, most YA readers have encountered such betrayals in life, sometimes far too personally, but it is unrealistic to present such serious breakage of families to young readers in a dismissive manner. I also have reservations as to the treatment of awakening sexuality, which also seems to me far too casually treated.

I expect this book to be a bestseller. I would have liked to give more stars, but I can't. Though there are a wide range of serious issues at play-- from science to spirituality, sex to the commitments of family, questions of passion about what one commits one's life to--none are given the richness and depth of treatment they deserve; all are merely "used" lightly as a means to create a popular read. And it is likely to be that. It just makes me sad that all of these issues and the young readers encountering them deserve more than this book delivers. ...more

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Jun 30, 2018 Tracy rated it it was amazing

Sometimes we just need to be believe in love at first sight. We certainly need to believe that the acts we do today can and do have lasting effects on people around us even if we don’t realize it at the time. I loved this book!

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