The Sun Is Also a Star

It took two chapters for me to decide I hated the format of this book. It took three more for me to change my mind and decide that the book's format is brilliant; I may have liked it more than I liked the story. If you don't like instalove stories, you won't like this. Your eyes will roll too much and you will give yourself a headache. I hail from Bollywood, the land of instalove, so I didn't mind it here. It's been a while since I first watched Before Sunrise (Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy), but it felt like that type of movie in book form: strangers meet, engage in altogether too meaningful dialogue entirely too quickly, fall in love.

I have a soft spot for stories set in NYC. A Queens boi myself, I could relate to Flushing boy taking the Garlic Express (7 train) into Manhattan.

My only real problem with this story is that Daniel and Natasha didn't feel like kids. It felt like kid things were thrown into the story to make me believe that they're kids and not young adults in their mid- to late twenties. Kid things like high school references, pre-college stressors, etc. But their feelings and their articulation of those feelings and their analysis of and conclusions about their lives and the world around them just felt way older. That's not to say that I wanted them to be less perceptive and their dialogue less mature; rather, I wanted them to just be the ages they sounded.

Nothing earth-shattering, here, but this is a sweet, quick, enjoyable read.

“Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself.”

Another one of those times when I feel I've read a different book than everyone else. People on BookTube have been raving and recommending this constantly for a few months and I was quite intrigued by it. This is by no means a terrible book, but I didn't enjoy it as everybody else. After finishing it and feeling quite let down that it didn't live up to the hype. I can see that idea behind the story comes from a good place but this author's writing was compelling enough for me.

It felt like the book was meant to be deep, it certainly attempted to dealt with very important topics like immigration and specific tensions that arise in immigrant families between parents and children, between siblings. It also brought up some big questions like Is there such thing as fate? etc. However, in the end, it was quite superficial, it barely scratched the surface of those issues, therefore it felt like they were used just to diversify the setting for a basically standard, cliché romance story. Clearly this was not the intention, but the writing is not strong enough to prove otherwise.

I don't have a gripe with standard YA, I read it for fun, for its ability to take me away from my problems, I don't expect it to have a lot of substance (I only get truly annoyed when the content is offensive and potentially harmful to impressionable readers) and I'm pleasantly surprised when it does go into deeper waters. What rubbed me the wrong way was that the people reviewing this book kept saying how profound it was, how it's so much more than a romance. But it is just an average romance with an interesting setting, at least for me it is.

The book tried to do too much in too little time. It features these two characters who supposedly fall in love in the span of a day and it tries to make a case that it's believable. For me it just wasn't. Probably because 1. I don't believe in love at first sight1; at least not in the way it was done it this book; I believe in sparks at first sight but I can hardly see a relationship develop in 24 hours. 2. I couldn't connect to the characters, I didn't like them enough to be very invested in the story and suspend my disbelief. Theoretically, I should've been head over heels with both Natasha and Daniel.
> Natasha's meant to be this girl who's passionate about science and reason, who doesn't believe in fate and superstitions, who feels music on a very deep level. I was supposed to relate to that because I'm the same way, in many aspects, yet I didn't. She didn't feel genuine enough to me, but more of a stereotype.

> Then we have Daniel, who's Korean American which I was very excited about because one of the other things I do for hours other than reading is watch Korean Dramas. Thanks to them I became very passionate about learning as much as I could about contemporary South Korean culture so obviously I was happy to see this representation in a popular book. Yet I didn't like Daniel very much either. He was sweet and all but his naivete was too much for me. He also felt like a stereotype, the one of the artist, who's overly sensitive and completely lacks pragmatism, who doesn't have any hobbies other than being an incurable romantic. I can relate to being idealistic, yet I couldn't relate to Daniel. The fact that Yoon went for the “I want to be a poet but my parents want me to be a doctor” trope was also annoying. I don't have anything against poets but it's been done before too many times. Why could't he want to be a teacher? Or a social worker? Or graphic novel artist? A personal trainer? A painter? Whatever. His parents would have opposed to anything that wouldn't bring him both prestige and money. So why a poet? Maybe I would've bought it if the author had showed me why he wanted to be one. Other than the fact that he had a Moleskine with him at all times we don't know anything about why a 17-old wants to turn this into a lifetime job and not keep it as a hobby.

Their connection also wasn't that convincing. Many times, I feel like a dichotomy, there's a constant battle between the dreamer and the rational thinker in me. I don't have a clear preference towards any of these traits. This probably applies to most people. So maybe this is why these characters didn't work for me. I also didn't feel any chemistry between them. I understand how they could've been very attracted to each other, but when they got to “I love you” I thought it was ridiculous. I kept comparing that day's evolution with the one in the Before Sunrise movie. Now that was an insta-connection I could buy.

The DEUS EX MACHINA was also something that dwindled my enjoyment. They were constantly bringing it up and which was frankly tiresome. It's one of those tropes I've rarely got patience for, especially when it's so in your face. Unlike Natasha, it's gonna take more than 12 hours to change my mind. The little Wikipedia snippets about concepts like the grandfather paradox were disruptive. I honestly don't understand the point in including them. That's just poor writing. And the ending was so silly it almost erased the good things. Not that plot was realistic in any way until then, but that ending made even harder to take seriously. We're supposed to believe they just happen to be on the same plane 10 years later and that Irene was also there. It's so over the top.

It does sound from this review like my experience with this book was completely negative, but that's not the case. Overall, nothing was a true faux-pas. The writing is not entirely uninspired, the plot and the characters, were somewhat engaging. I particularly liked her parents' story. There were also some humorous and genuine moments. There's potential in this author, but for me this book is undeniably over-hyped.

4/5 stars suns. “We're kindling amid lightning strikes, a lit match and dry wood, fire danger signs and a forest waiting to be burned.” When I first saw the title, it was love at first sight. Then I saw the cover, and I knew I needed this book. I read the description. I longed for it to be in my hands. Yet I had months seven months to wait. I ended up picking up [b:Everything, Everything 18692431 Everything, Everything Nicola Yoon https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1450515891s/18692431.jpg 26540216] just a week later, because I needed something to hold me off until its release date.I found myself waking up early the day of November 1st. I ran to Target before my first class of the day and got my copy before the store even had its chance to place it on the shelf. It remained in my hands the rest of the day. Despite the fact that the last month I've been stuck in a deep slump, any free second I had was spent reading. Only six pages in, I knew this book was going to be amazing. It was.It was a tragic story, really, about a love that is about to be ripped apart before it even had the chance to bloom. Natasha, Protagonist #1, is hours away from being deported. While Protagonist #2, Daniel, is about to accept the life that's been laid out for him by his parents. There was an atagonist too, who hid in the background of irrelevant chapters, that answers to the name of “The Universe.” After a chance encouter, the Protagonists spend the day navigating their issues together in a very [b:Eleanor & Park 15745753 Eleanor & Park Rainbow Rowell https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1341952742s/15745753.jpg 17225055] meets [b:The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight 10798416 The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight Jennifer E. Smith https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1337187623s/10798416.jpg 15464655] meets [b:November 9 25111004 November 9 Colleen Hoover https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1447138036s/25111004.jpg 40214925] sort of way. (I don't usually like comparing books to each other like a mediocre move critic, but whatever. I just did.) I was worried at first, because all three of those books came to mind, that I might have some deja vu to experience later in the story And yet, it wasn't anything like those books. The issues presented were more modern, real, and mostly untouched in YA literature. Deportation is a serious political issue in this country, where families are being uprooted and thrown back into a country they no longer consider home, all because they are considered to be illegal. Yet, even with it being such a hot topic lately, I know very little about it. I applaud Nicola Yoon for presenting the issue in her book. It shows the readers the other side of deportation, the side that isn't going to be presented on the news. It shows the hardworking human begins who built themselves a home in a country, and then all of a sudden have to tear it down. In this book, every character had a story and we were given a page or two of their lives. We are shown the thoughts of the women working security, who is planning her suicide later that night. We are told the story of the lawyer's assistant, who is desperately in love with her boss. The man who Natasha told to quit smoking? In just a page, we are told about the death of his wife. I loved these sections. They made the story, and supported the main theme of “the universe.” The Sun is Also a Star is honest and moving, and the only reason it lost a half of a star was because of the presence of instalove, which I'm not particularity fond of. Yet, I'm still going to round it up to five stars. Truly, this book is beautiful, and if any part of you is intrigued by any aspect of it, please pick it up. You won't regret it.