Book Review #134: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

 

When Daniel, a dreamer, meets Natasha, a realist, he challenges her - he will make her fall in love with him in one day. But Natasha doesn't have a day. She's hours away from being deported and doesn't have time for falling in love. As an hour turns into two, it seems like fate is intervening. Did Daniel and Natasha meet for a reason?

I've had this book for years and never really felt too compelled to pick it up. But because there's so many books I want to read, I really wanted to finish this one and remove it from my TBR!

I liked this book. It wasn't amazing or anything, but it was an interesting read, and more compelling than I expected.

The story is told from multiple points of view, which took me quite a while to get used to. And while it was good for the main characters and one other, I didn't really like it for any of the other viewpoints. It just took me out of the story a bit.

One reason for this was because there were so many times throughout the story where the reader is taught something. Whether about the universe, about Black culture, Asian culture, and while this was interesting, it didn't move the story forward in any way.

It's interesting to see the way young characters deal with adult themes and feelings, but it gives the story a weird dynamic. The characters sometimes felt older than they were, and at other times felt younger than they were supposed to.

I loved the main characters. I loved reading their interactions, and their chemistry is written really well. The best thing about the book is definitely their dialogue, and it would have been interesting to read about them in a different backdrop - without their individual storylines taking so much time away from their love story.

Throughout the book there was a weird, surface-level focus on race, and while this was interesting and realistic for the characters, it either needed to be explored properly, or it shouldn't have been such a focus.

The ending was interesting and unexpected, if a bit deflating. Without giving anything away, the best thing about the ending was Irene's story, which made the story pack an emotional punch that it wouldn't have otherwise.

Overall, this was a fun read, a cute story with great characters. There was a lot that I didn't care about, but I cared about the relationship enough that after a while, those things didn't matter. Also, after finishing the book I watched the movie adaptation, and while it was cute, I can definitely say that the book was a lot better!

3.5/5