From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

The Sun Is Also a Star

Nicola Yoon

Start date: February 1, 2023

Finish date: February 28, 2023

Discussion: 2023 Monthly Group Reads

Why we're reading this: February 2023 group read for "takes place in one day"…more
[close] February 2023 group read for "takes place in one day"

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What Members Thought

Jul 23, 2020 Kristin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: popsugar2020

I read Yoon's 'Everything, Everything' with high hopes and was thoroughly disappointed, so I went into 'The Sun Is Also a Star' with lower expectations. While it didn't completely redeem her for 'Everything, Everything', Yoon told a far better story here, and particularly appropriate in today's world where racism is dominating the headlines.
Drawing from her own background, Yoon tells the story of Natasha, a Jamaican-born teenager on the verge of being deported, and Daniel, a first-generation Ko I read Yoon's 'Everything, Everything' with high hopes and was thoroughly disappointed, so I went into 'The Sun Is Also a Star' with lower expectations. While it didn't completely redeem her for 'Everything, Everything', Yoon told a far better story here, and particularly appropriate in today's world where racism is dominating the headlines.
Drawing from her own background, Yoon tells the story of Natasha, a Jamaican-born teenager on the verge of being deported, and Daniel, a first-generation Korean-American pressured to do the culturally appropriate thing and go to an Ivy League school to be a doctor. The majority of the book takes place over a 12 hour span, beginning with Natasha on her way to the Immigration office to plead for an appeal of her family's deportation order and Daniel boarding a train to Manhattan for an interview with a Yale alum. They meet by chance and though they both know immediately that they can have no future together, their hearts move faster than their heads, leading to a whole roller coaster of a relationship in less than a day.
Interspersed with Yoon's telling of the interactions of the 2 principal characters are backstories on most of the characters, including minor ones like the security guard at the Immigration office and the driver of Daniel's train, and information about some of the topics Natasha and Daniel discuss. I particularly enjoyed these tangents as they are brief glimpses that tie into the overall context of the story without detracting from the main plot. Her portrayal of the main characters highlights the diversity in the world by combining culturally authentic descriptions, such as Daniel's parents holding him and his brother to exceptionally high standards and disappointment when they fail to attain them, with individual characteristics, like Natasha's love of grunge rock music, to ensure they are not simply stereotypical representatives of their ethnic background.
I'm a white American, and though I've learned a bit about Asian cultures from my cousins who were adopted from Korea and China, I'll be the first to admit that I probably haven't made a good enough effort to get to know about the people of various nationalities and ethnicities who make up the world we live in today. A book like this one definitely helps in that regard, as for example, I know the Black hair care industry is completely separate from that marketed towards other races because the products that I use would be useless, if not harmful, on the hair of a Black woman. However I did not know that Koreans often own stores selling Black beauty products because Korean hair is the preferred type used in natural wigs and hairpieces, and the wig business evolved into also carrying other beauty products for their clients. I can't say I've ever been in such a store, but I might have been surprised to see an Asian person behind the counter, especially knowing my cousins use the same products I do, but in this day and age, I would have probably figured that the person running the business must be making it work even if they didn't necessarily have experience using the products on themselves.
Overall, an excellent book and Yoon does a much better job with her second effort. ...more

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May 09, 2017 Amy Ellis rated it it was ok

This is one of those books I pushed through to figure out why it kept getting great reviews...still can't figure out why. Maybe the cutesy ending? The random science facts? Two teen immigrants fall in love in one day. It made me very grateful that I never have to be a teenager again. I found the plot, the dialogue, and the situations to be really grating. ...more

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Feb 13, 2017 Piepie | The Napping Bibliophile marked it as did-not-finish · review of another edition

DNF - p. 31. Just am not feeling this one...

(Sidebar... I LOVED Everything Everything! I rated it 4 stars.)

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Sep 19, 2019 Debbie rated it really liked it

Such an interesting read - the balance between poetry and physics, between dreams and practicalities, between destiny/fate and chance. The idea that we are all connected, and that we have influence over others' lives, whether we see it or not. My MGRP-lovin' heart especially loved the ways Yoon stepped back periodically to explain the backstory for a random (minor) character in the narrative; that was genius and really drove the interconnection point home. ...more

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Mar 05, 2017 Leslie rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017-reads, read-harder-challenge-2017

Probably a 3.5 star book for me. I love books that explore the ways that we are connected that we mostly are never even aware of. There were big sweeping emotions that didn't quite carry me along in the way I would have needed to in order to fully connect with the book and its characters. I really liked a lot of what it was doing, though. ...more

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