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The Sun is Also a Star

The Sun is Also a Star

YA ContemporaryRomance
Pages
439
Published
2016
Language
English

Synopsis

Natasha believes in facts, evidence, and things she can prove — not fate, and definitely not love at first sight. She has bigger problems anyway: in less than twenty-four hours, she and her family are set to be deported from the only home she really knows, back to a Jamaica she barely remembers. She spends her last day in New York fighting to stop it.

Daniel is a dreamer and a closet poet, the dutiful son of Korean immigrants who expect him to become a doctor. When he spots Natasha on a crowded street, something in him insists on following her — and on trying to prove, over the course of a single extraordinary day, that two strangers can fall in love if they simply choose to.

Told in alternating voices and threaded with brief detours into the lives that brush against theirs, The Sun Is Also a Star is a warm, bittersweet YA romance about destiny and chance, borders and belonging, and how much can change in one day.

Prose complexity
1/10

Vibe

RomanticHopefulEmotionalReflectiveThought-Provoking
Multiple POVs

Genres

YA Contemporary Romance YA Young Adult Contemporary Romance

About the author

N
Nicola Yoon

Nicola Yoon is a Jamaican-American author of young adult fiction. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York, studied electrical engineering at Cornell University and earned a Master of Creative Writing at Emerson College, and worked as a programmer for about twenty years before publishing. Her debut novel Everything, Everything (2015) and The Sun Is Also a Star (2016) both reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list and were adapted into films; The Sun Is Also a Star was a Natio...

Characters

Natasha KingsleyProtagonist

A pragmatic, science-minded teenager fighting her family's deportation on their last day in New York.

Daniel BaeProtagonist

A romantic aspiring poet, the son of Korean immigrants, who sets out to make Natasha fall in love.

All characters in The Sun is Also a Star

Frequently asked questions

  • How does the narrative structure differ from a standard novel?

    The story utilizes a unique, multi-perspective approach that alternates between the two protagonists while frequently interjecting with brief chapters from a nameless narrator. These additional segments provide historical context and backstories for minor characters encountered throughout the day, illustrating how seemingly unrelated lives and events are interconnected.

  • Is there a film adaptation available?

    A feature film adaptation directed by Ry Russo-Young was released in 2019, starring Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton.

  • Has The Sun Is Also a Star won any awards?

    Yes. Nicola Yoon won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent for this novel in 2017. The book was also a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

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