The Sun Is Also A Star

I have never felt as close to a writer or a fictional experience as I do to Nicola Yoon and The Sun Is Also a Star. It’s been said that having a wide variety of characters and cultures represented in literature is vital to our understanding of others and for others to understand us, and I’ve made that statement multiple times. What I never thought about before was how important it is to have a wide variety of characters and cultures represented in order to better understand ourselves. I understand myself and my family better because of The Sun is Also A Star.

The Sun Is Also a Star is a brilliant representation of humanity, and the roles love, fate, chance, and purpose play in how our world unfolds around us. Sun follows Natasha and David, two teenagers who are at points in their lives when their decisions have more weight, their futures uncertain, and their destinies seemingly in everyone else’s hands but their own. The story takes place over the course of a day, on the busy streets of New York City, and uses a unique narrative consisting of multiple POVs. Nicola Yoon converges lives and shows that even within our own story, the rest of the world matters.

Sun is about dreamers. It’s about the romantics and it’s about the realists. It’s about everyone who simply dreams of a life filled with happiness, passion, and love. It’s also about those who practically dream of security and freedom. Sun is about the immigrant story, one that’s more important than ever.

Sun follows Daniel, a Korean American boy who doesn’t fit into his family, and doesn’t fit into his country. It’s about Natasha, an undocumented Jamaican immigrant, who would appear more “American” than most Americans, because she certainly doesn’t “act Jamaican” but she’s not and she’s about to be deported. Sun is about our parents, who grew up with dreams as well, and we may or may not have played a part in those dreams. Sun is about the strangers around us, whose decisions can have unforeseeable, and long-lasting effects on our lives. It’s also about the strangers who are also affected by the decisions we make.

This is a story I think everyone should experience. It’s both global and intimate. It’s a love story, but also so much more. The characters in this book are layered and multifaceted. The story is thoughtful, profound, romantic, and hopeful. Yes, it’s a teenage love story—one that I fell hard and fast for—but it’s also about family and history. And of course, I was all in once I saw that it’s a reflection of my culture, and myself, and Nicola Yoon brightly showcases the beautiful complexity of my history, the complicated relationships intertwined, the dreams of my past and my future.

If you’ve read Everything, Everything, then you’ll recognize the exceptional style of Nicola Yoon’s prose. It’s gorgeous really, and even more so because she has this way of including seemingly random gems and factoids, and making the dry seem poetic. It’s hard to understand unless you’ve read her (read her!), but like Natasha, Nicola is a scientist and a romantic, and when those two combine, magic happens.

The Sun Is Also a Star is magic. It’s sweet, it’s meaningful, it’s heartbreaking, it’s buoyant, it sweeps you away, and yet keeps you grounded at the same time. This thought provoking love story is one I had a difficult time reviewing because I didn’t think I could truly convey what it meant to me. I reviewed it, but still haven’t expressed all I felt. I’ll just say that The Sun Is Also a Star shows how love provides hope and reason in a sometimes unfair and unreasonable world, and that message is everything to a romantic in a cynical world. I highly recommend.

Me lo he leído en un día me ha enganchando completamente. Si eres o has sido inmigrante o conoces a uno has de leerlo. Va mucho más allá de una simple novela de amor

Quando eu via as pessoas comentando que O Sol Também é Uma Estrela era melhor que Tudo e Todas as Coisas, eu confesso que não acreditava muito. Quero dizer, o primeiro livro de Nicolla Yoon já tinha me passado tantas coisas e sentimentos, que o meu cérebro pensava: “deve ser tão bom quanto… Mas não melhor”. A questão é que, bem, fazem algumas horas que terminei Sol – e tenho que dar o braço a torcer: as pessoas estavam certas.

Mesmo tendo uma trama mais simples do que a presente em seu livro de estreia, Nicolla Yoon constrói um verdadeiro universo para contar o encontro ‘casual’ (ou seria obra do destino?) de Natasha e Daniel. Ao mesmo tempo em que eles são incrivelmente diferentes, ambos possuem sutilezas semelhantes. E enquanto ela é metódica e realista, ele é passional e apaixonado. Juntos, em um dia, é como se vivessem uma vida inteira – e da forma mais simples e casual possível, e talvez tenha sido justamente este detalhe que me fisgou por completo.

E eu notei as iniciais iguais, Sra. Yoon. Ah, se notei!

Gostei muito de ver os dois juntos e conhecer os dois. Esta é uma história sobre imigrantes nos EUA, e a autora não decepciona ao montar os paralelos sociais, culturais e políticos na forma destas duas famílias – uma que se estabeleceu legalmente e outra ilegalmente, às vésperas da deportação. Cada família tem o seu peso para que este encontro aconteça, mas não apenas eles como uma miríade de personagens vão surgir para interligar a história de Natasha e Daniel.

Por falar em personagens, assim como amei o casal, muitos surgiram para mexer com os meus brios. Odiei o irmão de Daniel com todas as minhas forças. Tive raiva do pai de Natasha. Entretanto, um personagem em principal foi o que mais me afetou. Principalmente por tudo o que ele faz e o que acontece com ele. Sim, eu percebi que a autora usou ele como uma crítica ao privilégio, mas ainda que tenha entendido a mensagem, não fiquei feliz por ele ter se dado bem – depois do estrado que faz na vida de tanta gente em nome de seu egoísmo.

Enfim, este livro despedaçou o meu coração – no bom e no mal sentido. Conforme o final ia se aproximando, eu só chorava mais. Não estava preparado para as emoções que esta história iria evocar em mim, e mesmo antevendo o fim desde a metade, não me preparei para ele. Por isso, quando te disserem que Sol é mais impactante que Tudo, acreditem nisto. Talvez isto te prepare para a montanha russa em que você vai embarcar.