The Sun Is Also a Star

by Nicola Yoon

[lizarodz]

Quite the Novel Idea http://quitethenovelidea.com http://quitethenovelidea.com/liza-reviews-the-sun-is-also-a-star-by-nicola-yoon/Since Leah already did an excellent job of reviewing this book (see it here), my review will be short.

I really loved Everything, Everything and I was eager to read Yoon’s new book, The Sun is Also a Star.  I have to confess that I didn't love it as much as her previous book.

Natasha cynical, pragmatic, realistic, and a science nerd.  She’s from Jamaica, from parents that are illegal immigrants and the family is being deported that day.  She’s out on a quest to find a way to stay in the US when she meets Daniel.

Daniel was my favorite part of the story.  He is the son of Korean immigrants that want his son to be a doctor and never have to be “poor”. He’s on his way to an interview to get into Yale when he meets Natasha and everything goes haywire form there. He’s a poet, a dreamer, an optimist.

Now, the story takes place in a day (less than 24 hours, really).  AND Daniel and Natasha fall in love in that period of time.  Now, being the romantic that I am, I do believe in love-at-first-sight. BUT I think that while somewhat believable, things went to fast for me.

I have to give Yoon kudos for the diversity that lives within the pages of the book and for her portrait of NYC.  It probably hits close to her own situation and it feels like a more personal book from her.  I really like the writing, however this book is not for everyone.  I felt that the “insight” chapters (that’s what I’m calling them, but they are kind of  intermissions within the story form others POVs) like an interruption to the natural flow of Natasha and Daniel’s story.  Are they relevant?  Sometimes. But I felt I could have done without.

After the last chapter, I was about to have a conniption, but the epilogue was this book’s saving grace. That’s all I’m saying about it.

I hope I could say that I loved The Sun is Also a Star as much as I did Yoon’s debut, but I didn’t.



The audiobook for The Sun is Also a Star has three narrators.  Bahni Turpin for Natasha, Raymond Lee for Daniel and Dominic Hoffman for the multitude of other POVs and “insight” chapters in the book.  I really like when books from multiple POVs have more than one narrator, however I just didn’t like Natasha’s voice.  I think the acting was really good, but the not the voice.  Lee as Daniel was excellent and Hoffman was more of a monotone since it was mostly narrating/informing as an objective party.This review was originally posted on Quite the Novel Idea