Review: The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Title: The Sun Is Also a Star
Author: Nicola Yoon
Genres: YA, contemporary, romance
Goodreads

'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?'

★★★★★/5 stars

Here it is, the best YA contemporary I've read all year!

I went into this one with extremely high expectations. I loved Nicola Yoon's first book, Everything Everything, and I fell in love with this book when I saw the cover and I read it's synopsis. Having high expectations when going into a book is almost never a good idea, because I usually end up being extremely disappointed, but The Sun Is Also A Star managed to exceed my expectations!

While I first thought that this book would include a lot of insta-love, it didn't. Not really. Daniel, the hopeless romantic poet that he is, knows that wants to be with Natascha almost the second he sees here, but Natascha is very hesitant. Throughout the book, you can see them starting to really fall for each other, and it's incredibly cute. And even though the romance takes place over the course of a day, it feels very real and authentic.

This book did have something I needed to get used to, and that was all the different POV's. You don't only get to read from the POV of Natascha and Daniel, but also from the POV of a lot of minor characters, like the driver of the tram Daniel's in, and the security guard at the immigration office. This added a lot to the story, and I absolutely loved it. Besides this, Nicola Yoon's writing was absolutely beautiful, and almost magical. 

Something I also really liked was the exploration of the Jamaican and Korean-American cultures in the book. It was incredibly interesting, especially Daniel talking about the struggles of being both Korean and American.

I would highly recommend you picking this one up, even if it's only to frame the book and hang it on your wall because it's GORGEOUS.