Review: "The Sun is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon

RATING: 3.5/5

“There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.” - N. Yoon

I've heard a lot of promising stories about "The Sun is Also a Star" so I was really excited when I got this book for my birthday last month. I haven't read any other novel written by Yoon so I really had no idea if I generally liked her writing style or not. I was actually quite excited to be surprised by this book, not only because of the promising reviews about "The Sun is Also a Star" but also "Everywhere, Everywhere". I have to say that I was surprised about this contemporary young adult novel: both in good and bad ways. The book is about two teenage kids living in New York City. The first kid is Daniel: a Korean guy who is under a lot of performance pressure by his parents and his older brother. The second kid is Natasha, who is a Jamaican girl living with her brother and parents in a one-bedroom apartment. You probably guessed it, they're going to meet somewhere during the story. The only problem is that Natasha is an illegal immigrant in America and she and her family are going to be deported back to Jamaica within 24 hours. That's a big problem since Daniel and Natasha will fall in love on her last day in New York. I was really attracted to the book because of the blurb. The book sounded like a lot of fun and I generally don't read a lot of romance novels so I really looked forward to reading something different. I liked the beginning of the book: it was fast and direct. I liked the way you get to know the characters by their own thoughts but also because of the thoughts of people around them. It was a really interesting approach of writing a novel that I haven't seen anywhere else. However, there are some aspects of this book I didn't enjoy as much. One of the things is that it's very predictable. At the very beginning of the book I already thought of what could happen at the end- and it did. I like to be surprised while reading a book, unfortunately that didn't happen with this book. Another thing I didn't like is the stereotype storyline: nerdy guy falls in love with a girl who isn't interested in him. I've read this basis for a romance book numerous times, so I am pretty tired of it. Considered all the pros and cons, I can say that I generally enjoyed reading this book. It was a very quick read. I can recommend this to anyone who likes contemporary young adult novels.