Book Review: The Sun is Also a Star

"The Sun is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon

Genre- Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Hardcover Edition-348 pages

5/5 Lily Pads

Would I Recommend It? Yes, it's one of my favorite books!

No Spoilers!!

Favorite Quotes:

   “Stars are important," I say, laughing. "Sure, but why not more poems about the sun? The sun is also a star, and it's our most important one. That alone should be worth a poem or two.” 

 “People just want to believe. Otherwise they would have to admit that life is just a random series of good and bad things that happen until one day you die.”

 “Some people exist in your life to make it better. Some people exist to make it worse.” 

 “We think we want all the time in the world with the people we love, but maybe what we need is the opposite. Just a finite amount of time, so we still think the other person is interesting. Maybe we don't need acts two and three. Maybe love is best in act one."

 “There’s a pure kind of joy in the certainty of belief. The certainty that your life has purpose and meaning. That, though your earthly life may be hard, there’s a better place in your future, and God has a plan to get you there.”

This book has so many good quotes, it was really hard for me to only pick a couple. 

Hey guys, I'm back with a review. Today I am reviewing the second book I read in 2017 and that is "The Sun is Also a Star". I absolutely loved her first book "Everything, Everything". When I found out she was writing a second book, I was so happy and couldn't wait to read it. I'm so glad I finally read this book because it was amazing! This book is seriously one of the best books I've ever read! This book is so special and unique, it really stands out from the other YA Contemporary books. After loving "Everything, Everything" I didn't think I could love this book as much but I was wrong. This book was even better! Anyway, let's get on with the review.

The Plot(Goodreads Summary)  

 Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

My Opinion

I loved this book so much you guys! It's one of my favorite books now and everyone needs to read it.

Of course I love Nicola Yoon's writing style. It's simple but so beautiful. Every single line in this book was so beautiful and meaningful. There were so many amazing quotes and lines from this book. I can't really explain why I loved this book so much. 

I absolutely loved the plot for this book. I've never read a book about immigration before and i'm so glad I did. It's one of those topics that aren't talked about enough and I haven't see it in YA books before. I just loved learning about immigration and racism. I'm not a racist person but this book still really opened my eyes about people from different cultures living in America. I never really thought about how it must feel for a immigrant to live here. It's just something that never occurred to me. I had no idea how hard it is to be one. Besides the plot of immigration I just loved how this book took place in one day and it was also about family and romance. I definitely want to read more books about immigration and my goal this year is to read more diverse books with people of color. My favorite book of all time "The Help" is about African Americans and I just love learning about other cultures, it's just so fascinating to me. 

Now, let's talk about the characters. The characters in this book were so amazing! Our two main characters Natasha and Daniel were so well-developed.

I really loved Natasha. She was a great protagonist. She was such a great person and I loved how strong she was about everything. I can relate to her in a way but I'm also very different from her. I don't think of myself as a strong-willed, intelligent person like Natasha is. She's a realist and she's very smart. She loves Math and Science which are two subjects I was never good at. Her character was just so interesting to read about and I loved learning about her family and culture as a Jamaican immigrant. I've never read a book with a Jamaican protagonist, it was so unique. I love Nicola Yoon because she always writes about topics that are important but aren't really talked about and they need to be out there more. I just love how diverse her characters are. 

I loved Daniel so much!! He's probably my favorite character in this book. He's definitely a new book boyfriend of mine. I just loved his character. He was the perfect guy. He's so sweet and caring. He was such a gentleman. I loved that unlike Natasha, he's a dreamer which is really unique. He believes in fate and destiny and that things happen for a reason. He also believes in true love. He was just a really refreshing character. I loved that he is a poet and loves English. I love to write so I was able to relate to him too. I just loved him to death! I also loved that he was Korean because I love Asia. I love the asian culture so much and I've never read a book with a Korean character so I found that aspect unique. I loved learning about his Korean family and the culture was so interesting. I liked this family but I hated his older brother, Charlie. He was terrible! He wasn't a good person and he was just so mean.

The romance in this book was so adorable. This book takes place in one day and you'd think it would be insta-love but it's not. The book feels like it was more than one day. It was a slow burn romance and the romance was really developed slowly. I liked that Natasha and Daniel were friends first. I'll admit that the ending was sort of heartbreaking, but the epilogue was great. The ending was very realistic and I loved that. Sometimes I get sick of the same "everything turns out in the end" type of story. The ending was perfect. 

I loved that there was religion in this book. I feel like no one ever talks about the religion used in this book. As a Christian I loved that Daniel believed in God and I just loved all of the religion talk with the train driver. It's so refreshing to read when I find a fiction book with religion in it. It's very important to me.  

Last but not least I'm going to talk about what I learned from this amazing book. 

It's hard to say everything I learned about this book, because I learned so much from it. So I'm going to just tell you one thing I learned from "The Sun is Also a Star".

The main lesson is to do what you want and don't do what other people want you to do. Follow your heart, do what you want. In the book Daniel's parent's wanted him to go to "Yale" and become a doctor. But Daniel didn't want to do that. He didn't really want to go to college. His dream is to be a poet, because he loves to write poems and didn't want to be a doctor like his parents wanted. The lesson is to do what you want, your parents can't decide your life for you because it's not up to them, it's only your choice. Only you can control your life and do what you want. That's the biggest lesson I learned from this book. 

Overall, this is probably the most meaningful I've ever read. Everyone on this planet needs to read this book. It's very eye opening and inspiring. This book really made me think. This book is so unique and different. If you want a unique contemporary book that's different from all the other YA books, check out this one. You won't regret it. It's one of my favorite books now and Nicola Yoon is definitely one of my favorite authors. I also recommend "Everything, Everything" if you haven't read it yet. This book is definitely worth a buy and it's one of those books that you should share with your loved ones because it's such an important book to read. I obviously gave this book 5/5 Lily Pads and I will be rereading this book in the future. This is one of those rare books that will stick with me for a long time. It was a very memorable book. Anyway, that was my long review. Thank you so much for reading. Please go read this book. Even if you don't like Contemporary books, please read it. It's amazing and you won't regret reading it. Stay tuned for more posts coming and thanks again for everything, happy reading! :)