The Sun is also a Star Paperback – Big Book, 1 January 2016

a must-read. the story takes place in a day, but each minute was worth it. you'll love it.

A very pleasant experience. Arrived on time and the book was in excellent condition.

I am such a sucker for cute romances and this book was no less. You must have heard how this book is all about insta-love and how people usually hate that. I agree. I too hate insta-loves in most of the cases, but this book doesn’t fall into that case, for me. Despite insta-love-y storyline, in the beginning, I loved it because it was more than that. I loved both Daniel and Natasha as the characters and I loved Nicola Yoon’s writing, though it was my first ever read of hers.The whole story takes place in ONE day so you can’t argue with the insta-love plot, can you? I mean there are always limitations to writing a story in such a short period of time. I usually don’t understand how two people meet for the first time and fall in love instantly when they are quite different? But believe me, this story was so perfectly written that you would actually ignore the insta-love plot and would start rooting for Daniel and Natasha 🙂Probably, I should talk about the ending at the end of this review but I think it is better if I do it right here. We have a nice perception related to insta-love stories regarding how they would end. I had same expectations from this story too. But Nicola Yoon did a wonderful job with the ending part. Though my little heart broke badly, I was happy that she chose this ending. That made the story more believable but yes I wished it to be a little longer.Natasha and Daniel are two teens who find each other one fine day in New York. Natasha was an undocumented migrant and was about to be deported to Jamaica that day because of a mistake her father made. Daniel was the son of two South Korean parents but was born in America. Daniel and Natasha were totally different. One was a believer in love while another was a believer in science. Nicola Yoon created an atmosphere where two people meet who are so different yet bound together by time, destiny, love and who are “meant to be” somehow.A unique thing about the representation of the story was the change of perspectives. I loved how the story was switched between Natasha’s and Daniel’s perspectives, but the better thing was including the perspectives of minor side characters and third person chapters too, which made the story more interesting. For example, there were chapters related to the history of hair products for black people, which definitely made the little insights into the story more interesting. There were some chapters related to past of a few characters who played a significant role in the story. Those memories show us how the choices made by a person can affect their future and how those choices can impact other peoples lives.This story was more about life than love. No matter what decision you make, it is going to affect your present and future. And if it is meant to be, then it has to be. Life is full of surprises and you don’t know what would come next. But giving up is not the option.Nicola Yoon has presented a lot of diversity in this book. There is a strong representation of immigration issues and race. Daniel and Natasha both are immigrants but the difference is one is legal while the another is undocumented. The migration story from both the perspectives offer their own messages and struggles and represent family and identity thus making the story more than just the romance.Apart from diversity, the issues like loneliness and mental health have also been raised. There is a side character whose story I loved. This tells you that how little gestures can make an impact on peoples lives. This story gives you hope and courage. but most importantly, it makes you find the light within yourself.Overall, this was a fantastic read and now I am a fan of Nicol Yoon’s writing. The build-up of the story was good and the characters were adorable. The story was well written and also it was fast-paced. All the immigrant’s issues were presented so well. They were hard to digest but I am glad that Nicola Yoon has not sugarcoated anything. If you are looking for a diverse YA contemporary read with a cute romance, then this book is definitely for you. This story is just magical!

The Sun Is Also a Star, is a touching story about two teenagers who deserve the chance to get to know each other, but risk having it ripped away from them before it’s even really begun. The novel takes place in New York City, where Natasha is on a mission to save her family from being deported back to Jamaica. On her journey she meets Daniel, who, due to a combination of bizarre and seemingly meant-to-be moments, notices her from afar and feels that he must get to know her. Over the course of their day, Daniel tries to undermine Natasha’s belief that both love and fate aren’t real, and that science explains everything.It’s a beautiful read, consistently making me want to laugh and cry, and question my own opinions in regard to how the universe works.Firstly, I’d like to mention that the cover art for this book is absolutely stunning. Upon finishing it, I understood its meaning immediately: that every second, different people, things and circumstances are all brought together, and they clash to create an outburst of consequences that have a huge impact on the rest of our lives. We make hundreds of decisions every single day, and each of these decisions leads to a different future where hundreds of more decisions lie. The outcome depends on which route we take. The cover and the novel, both encourage readers to think about everything they do with an open mind, and to be careful with how we effect other people’s journeys.Leading on from that, I love how every event in the novel was interlinked with another, how every person we were introduced to either had a hand in how Daniel and Natasha’s lives played out, or vice-versa. It shows how even saying one kind (or rude) word to a stranger can influence them to make a huge life-changing decision.The novel also dealt well with racism and how young people cope with having extremely prejudice parents. Daniel’s father’s disrespect towards Natasha and his embarrassment, I felt was written incredibly well and worked towards giving the characters more dimension. It’s realistic to write, not only about two characters who are both considered minorities in Twenty-First Century America, but who also don’t conform to the stereotypes placed on them. Daniel’s issues with his Korean parents wanting what’s best for him instead of what makes him happiest, and Natasha’s father wanting what’s best for himself instead of what’s best for his family, gives them common ground which many readers will be able to identify with. Yoon portrays realistic family dynamics in showing that they are complicated and hardly ever perfect.Although I loved The Sun Is Also a Star, the reason I’m not giving it five stars, is that it was a little hard to get into. I think this was because the chapters started off very short and kept switching perspectives, however I understand that this was necessary to get the whole concept across. More into the middle I began to enjoy the short chapters because they gave us access to what each character was thinking in any particular moment. Something else that bothered me, was Natasha’s personality. As brutal as that sounds, she was a bit hard to like because of her pessimistic nature and how rude she was to Daniel at times, but as the story went on and he warmed her heart, she was much easier to read.The ending was absolutely amazing – so amazing that it brought tears to my eyes for literally no reason! I wholeheartedly recommend this book as it really can change your entire viewpoint on the world and our day-to-day lives. 4 stars to Nicola Yoon’s, The Sun Is Also a Star. Brilliant.

Despite going in with high expectations, I still found myself pleasantly surprised by just how much I enjoyed this book! Romance is not normally a genre I particularly enjoy, but I've been making an extra effort to give books like this more of a chance, especially if they come very highly reviewed as this one did. Nicola Yoon has been on my radar for a while, so I was excited to finally give her work a try! The words on the pages felt as fresh and vibrant as the front cover, and it was really unique despite focussing one one of my least favourite types of relationship - insta-love.Yoon's approach to this book was very unique. There were two main POVs, Daniel and Natasha, but there were still snippets of fact and other character POVs that kept the story flowing and provided a different perspective. I really liked the way this book was structured and the length of each chapter especially because it felt like a really quick read and stood out from others as well-written, contemporary and buzzing with both energy and intensity. Natasha and Daniel were really great characters, I liked the book's focus on racism between minorities and immigration (Natasha is an illegal Jamaican immigrant about to be deported and Daniel, of Korean descent, is being forced to live the 'American dream' by his parents who had it harder) which is something rarely covered in books.I have to say though, despite throwing in lots of other distractions along the way, the insta-love still made me eye roll just a teensy bit. Especially as Natasha was so dead-set against it! Some of the quotes in this book are clever and a little cute, but a fair few of them could be pretty vomit-inducing for most of the reading public. As the book was focussing on such serious issues, I really wanted to believe that this story could happen. But it struck me as . little too cringey to be feasible. Of COURSE Daniel is a poet (and boy, do we know it). Of COURSE he sees 'signs' and 'fate' in the most mundane of things. Of COURSE Natasha goes along with it and doesn't report him for stalking her like that. Of COURSE love wins all, even though they have only known each other for a day! Yeah, it definitely felt like a marmite book to me, but it won me round!

This book has a loud message. Lots of messages actually. And whilst it isn't discreet - why should it be? Immigration takes guts - a new place is scary enough and all the potential in that new place is exciting of course, but what happens if you're desperate to stay somewhere and you can't? This topic is multi-faceted and effects people differently, but one thing is probably true for everyone - we only know our own stories.That's what I liked so much about this book. This book tries to look, almost like a snapshot, at so many different peoples experiences. Not just Natasha and Daniels. Some of the extracts from seemingly secondary characters are more than just a bit of background filler; some are factual, some are just interesting and others are snapshots of heart-wrenching accounts of what some of those characters who seem so insignificant to the story might have been going through.I can't detract from the fact that this is basically a love story - Daniel and Natasha are opposites who undertake a sort of social experiment to see if spending the day together will make them fall in love. And of course it works. But what's interesting about this love story is that Daniel is a hopeless romantic and Natasha just isn't. She absolutely doesn't believe in love at first sight, and so her "coming around to the idea" of it is quite interesting to watch. I have to admit that I'm probably just as sceptical as Natasha is, I think love is more of a long-term thing where you get used to someone's rubbish parts as well as how much you're attracted to them. So it's hard to believe in this love at first sight story which progresses over the space of a few hours, in a single day.But, if you can look past the slightly unbelievable love story. The underpinning ideas are really interesting. I didn't love it like I loved Everything, Everything but I did like it quite a lot.

I didn’t know what to expect before going into reading The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon, just that I really enjoyed one of her previous books, Everything, Everything, and I had therefore automatically bought this book when I realised that Yoon had a new book out. I try to go into books with as much of a black mind as possible, as I don’t like getting spoiled or building up too much hype or expectation as this can often be left down and ruin a book that you would’ve ended up really enjoying. Obviously, this book came out a while ago and having left it a while to read it, I had heard peoples opinions and heard roughly what it was about.The first thing I noticed when I went into this book is that I still really liked Nicola Yoon’s style and how she puts together a book. This book contains incredibly short chapters, that make you feel like you are flying through it, which you are (as I read this book within a couple of hours). She has a such unique style to her books, which I’m really enjoying when it comes to reading her books and I do hope to read more still. With the two I have read now, both I have read in one sitting, without waiting to or needing to put down, as I’ve wanted to see the outcome. This is rare and shows skill with not only her writing but with her ability to tell a story.This book follows our two main characters, Daniel and Natasha, and we get to experience the book from their individual perspectives. However, along the way and during the day, they have encounters with other people and we get to see glimpses into those peoples live and get to see how those interactions have an effect. I was unsure whether I liked these chapters at first, but the more I read them and the more I was seeing what was happened, them more I was enjoying these glimpses and seeing how brief interactions can have an affect on peoples lives, without us even knowing.I really liked the characters of Daniel and Natasha, finding them both believable and strong, not only as individuals but together. I really enjoyed reading about them and although this story takes place mainly within one day, their acknowledgement of that fact and their feelings, probably helped with the believability of this story. That they both had other things going on in their lives and their ‘chance’ meeting was exactly what they both needed.This is exactly the type of book I needed to read and I got exactly what I wanted and needed out of it and then some. It even went further, discussing racism and expectations when it comes to cultures and mix race relationships, which wasn’t what I was expecting, thinking that this was just going to be a light contemporary read.