Book Review of The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon is a beautiful book with a beautiful cover that showcases two intricately-written characters in an artful way. You can't merely look at the cover. When you are holding it in your hands (...and, I insist that you do this because, if you like YA at all and you haven't read this book already, you are missing out.), you will realize that the way it looks is only one facet of the design, and the smooth, debossed texture of the title lettering creates a gorgeous contrast with the intensely colorful design in the background, which looks like it is made of thread. But, I can't spend the whole review geeking out about the cover, because what's inside is even better.

I love the restraint with which Nicola Yoon tells this story. It would be so easy to withhold real estate on the page from Natasha and Daniel in order to develop side characters or explain incidental plot points more than the story required. But, that would have been a mistake, and when reading this book, I realized Yoon took every possible opportunity to build her two main characters as much as possible. She made them so three-dimensional, I'm waiting to run into them at the airport. Everything from the ticking clock of Natasha's family scheduled to be deported in twelve hours from the beginning of the story to Daniel's upcoming interview brings the tension of this well-crafted narrative as tight as the strings on its cover without distracting from the goal of the story. By the time you are done reading The Sun Is Also A Star, you will know Natasha and Daniel, and you will love them.

The other amazing thing about this book is the feeling of timelessness. It came out in November, but with current events here in the US., the story of one family about to be deported and another aching to build up on a foundation of its immigrant past feels like it was written for readers of today. It feels like this book, if tucked into suitcases and placed into shaking palms, might pause the stress of xenophobic bans and ease the tension about wrong assumptions of other cultures just a little. ...maybe just enough to make readers know that Nicola Yoon understands, and give them hope that there are other people out there who do, as well.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.