The Sun Is Also A Star

Heartbreakingly perfect, The Sun Is Also A Star is simply an amazing novel. It tells the story of Daniel and Natasha and how two people who have never met can find each other and fall in love. Natasha is trying to stay in America, trying not to get deported, and her whole day is supposed to revolve around that. Then there's Daniel. He's supposed to prepare for and have the biggest interview of his whole life. Then they meet.

I really connected with Natasha and Daniel, as I am also a child of immigrants. It can be a difficult balance, trying to stay connected to the culture of your parents and being a part of the culture of the country you live in. Some people want you to be one way, others want you to be another. It's a wonderful thing to find someone who understands. I have friends who were in the same boat growing up, even though our parents were not necessarily from the same countries, we shared similar experiences. There is a struggle that I think maybe all children of immigrants go through, though maybe to different degrees depending on how "different" a parent's home country is. While Natasha is Jamaican and Daniel is Korean-American, they share similar life experiences. I really enjoyed the conversation about "where are you really from", as I have had that question asked many times. There's the food thing too.

Nicola Yoon creates not only complex, beautiful characters, but writes with emotion. The decisions that not only Natasha and Daniel make, but also Irene, Natasha and Daniel's respective parents, Charlie, Attorney Fitzgerald, and even the waitress at the restaurant, are full of heartache. Nothing is taken lightly, they all have deep, serious, inner lives that maybe our two main characters know nothing about. It comes through in the interesting style in which Yoon has structured her novel. I wonder if her first novel, Everything, Everything is written in the same style (a book that I absolutely now have to read). There were also great references to 90's grunge and a quiz that I watched Penny and Sheldon take on The Big Bang Theory, which made me so happy. A great plot, amazing characters and interesting style, I couldn't help but love The Sun Is Also A Star.

*I won The Sun Is Also A Star as an ARC from a Goodreads giveaway. Yay!