The Sun Is Also A Star

On a "perfect" fall day, seventeen-year-quondam Natasha Kingsley and her family are twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Tasha decides to have a long shot and visit the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to hopefully convince someone to let her stay, to non pay for her father's mistake.

"To be articulate: I don't believe in fate. Just I'thousand desperate."

She's desperate to stay with her friends, her habitation, her livelihood for the past ten years. Despite the fact that she d

On a "perfect" fall 24-hour interval, seventeen-yr-old Natasha Kingsley and her family are twelve hours abroad from existence deported to Jamaica. Tasha decides to take a long shot and visit the U.s. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to hopefully convince someone to let her stay, to not pay for her begetter'south error.

"To be clear: I don't believe in fate. Merely I'm desperate."

She's desperate to stay with her friends, her home, her livelihood for the past ten years. Despite the fact that she doesn't believe in miracles, Natasha was still hoping for i—she doesn't want her futurity to be erased.

And you lot could really experience her pain through the words. Moving away is never easy, only when you don't even have a say in it, that's a whole new world of pain and sorrow that Nicola Yoon perfectly transcribes in this book.

"How long before her friends forget nigh her? How long before she picks upwards a Jamaican accent? How long before she forgets that she was e'er in America?"

The Sun Is Also a Star has a switching narrative between two main characters, which fabricated the story flow easily.
Side note: I liked that when a side character was mentioned in one chapter, they got to take a history page in the next ane.

Our second narrator, Daniel Jae Ho Bae, is an aspiring poet who writes in his Moleskine notebook—poems about heartbreak, even though he's never had his eye cleaved... nevertheless.

Because of his upcoming alumni admission interview with Yale, Daniel'due south parents let him have the 24-hour interval off from school. But staying at abode, where his mother bombards him with questions, is not an pick. And so, on his Final Day of Babyhood, he opts to become out, where he encounters Natasha having a moment with her music.

Tasha was on her way to meet with Attorney Fitzgerald to help with her case, while Daniel was on his fashion to cutting of his short ponytail past his favorite barber.

Coincidence? I think not.

And nosotros all know what follows after...

This review will contain *mild spoilers* from here on.

I was expecting to be bellyaching with the insta-love because the principal premise is that they fall for one another in less than twelve hours, and for the main part I was... because after knowing her for 10 minutes (maybe even less), Daniel begins to imagine himself with Tasha in onetime historic period.

But this book deals with such a plethora of heavy subjects such as loneliness, heartbreaks, first loves, race, loyalty, suicide... that insta-love was the least of my worries (...merely nonetheless problematic).

Daniel even kind of chosen himself out on falling in love and so chop-chop.

"At that place's a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. Information technology doesn't mean love at start sight. Information technology'southward closer to dearest at second sight. It'southward the feeling when y'all meet someone that yous're going to fall in love with them. Peradventure you lot don't love them right abroad, merely it's inevitable that you will."

And he's pretty sure that, though, he'due south experiencing it on their second encounter… Natasha is not.

(He's right.)

Of class, since Tasha cannot ignore the lovey-dovey looks he throws at her, she tells him the one line that ever makes me crack up:

"Red Tie," I say.
"Daniel," he insists.
"Don't autumn in dear with me, Daniel."

I always find the last line hysterical because of Meredith from The Function.

Literally cry-laughing over this.

Even so, when Natasha informs him that she doesn't believe in dearest (don't worry, she's non a carper. "She'south a realist"... aka what every cynic ever said), Daniel tries to make her fall in dearest scientifically (using The 36 Questions That Lead to Love).

Appreciable fact: Yous know you've hit rock-lesser of agony when you try to make a stranger fall in love with yous like that... Yay, science.

They don't have time to answer all thirty-6 since Tasha has an appointment and then she has to go home, so they argue over which questions to choose.

"We're trying to fit a lifetime into a solar day."

And I was looking everywhere to observe the perfect thing to convey my feelings near their insta-lovey situation, and I finally constitute it:

Thanks, Universe.

Another Observable fact: I feel like I would've loved this volume a few years back when I was just as contemptuous as Natasha. Simply reading almost her crushing every dream of Daniel's managed to drain all of my energy.

But on a more positive note, when the focus shifted to the issues I mentioned at the starting time of this review, I got educated in the most honest and accepting way, so thank you, Nicola Yoon, for that.

And as well on a completely unrelated note, I would honey to run into Daniel and Natasha's norebang (karaoke) singing skills on the big screen.

I 100% condone his choice to sing "Have a Chance On Me" by ABBA. And I'one thousand still laughing near his commentary on Natasha'south singing:

"Her singing is earnest and heartfelt and completely atrocious.
It's not good.
At all.
I'1000 pretty certain she's tone-deaf. Any note she does hit is purely coincidental."

The nerve!!!

And finally, after this part comes the moment I've been waiting for:

"Well-nigh poems I've seen are almost love or sex or the stars. You lot poets are obsessed with stars. Falling stars. Shooting stars. Dying stars."
"Stars are of import," I say, laughing.
"Sure, simply why not more poems about the sun? The sun is too a star, and information technology'due south our most important one. That alone should be worth a verse form or two."

I live for those crucial moments when titles are mentioned in the storyline.

And so we get to know what's going to happen to Tasha'southward deportations situation, which subsequently reading Everything, Everything, I was pretty certain the end-game was self-explanatory. But for one time in my life, I had predictable the incorrect ending (...in a way).

Overall, I would say that The Sun Is Also a Star wasn't what I was expecting, for better or for worse.

I wasn't anticipating this book to be and then heavily focused on the romance but rather on coming-of-age in ones near defining fourth dimension.
But the book did deal with a lot of other crucial subjects in the most honest style, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.

So to quote Tasha, "the trouble with getting your hopes likewise far up is: it's a long way down."

P.S. I hate Jeremy Fitzgerald.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/5 stars

*Note: I'thou an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying The Sun Is Also a Star, just click on the paradigm beneath to become through my link. I'll make a pocket-sized commission!*

This review and more can be found on my blog.

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28763485-the-sun-is-also-a-star

Posted by: haylesableatifes.blogspot.com

Share this post