The Sun Is Also a Star

Description

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nicola Yoon is back with her second book, and just like Everything, Everything, it’s an instant classic with a love story that’s just as intense as Maddy and Olly’s–get ready for Natasha and Daniel.

This book is inspired by Big History (to learn about one thing, you have to learn about everything). In The Sun is Also a Star, to understand the characters and their love story, we must know everything around them and everything that came before them that has affected who they are and what they experience.

Two teens–Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica–cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives–Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family’s deportation to Jamaica–and fall in love.PRAISE FOR The Sun Is Also a Star: 

“[C]arefully plotted and distinctly narrated […] It’s lyrical and sweeping, full of hope, heartbreak, fate, and free will.” —Starred Review, Booklist

“A moving and suspenseful portrayal of a fleeting relationship.” —Starred Review, Publishers Weekly

“With appeal to cynics and romantics alike, this profound exploration of life and love tempers harsh realities with the beauty of hope in a way that is both deeply moving and satisfying.” –Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews

“[A]n exhilarating, hopeful novel […] It’s about seeing and being seen, interconnectedness and the possibility of love… and it shines.”–Starred Review, Shelf Awareness

“The teens’ alternating first-person narrations are fresh and compelling, and interspersed throughout are relevant third-person omniscient musings on various histories, from the past and future histories of some of the book’s secondary characters to the chemical history of love to a quantum theory of multiverses.” –Starred Review, Horn Book Magazine

PRAISE FOR Everything, Everything:

“Transcends the ordinary by exploring the hopes, dreams, and inherent risks of love in all of its forms.” —Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews

“I give all the stars in the sky to Nicola Yoon’s sparkling debut. Everything, Everything is everything, everything–powerful, lovely, heart-wrenching, and so absorbing I devoured it in one sitting. It’s a wonder. The rare novel that lifts and shatters and fills you all at once.” —Jennifer Niven, New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright PlacesNICOLA YOON is the author of the instant New York Times #1 bestseller, EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and their daughter, both of whom she loves beyond all reason. Visit NicolaYoon.com and follow @NicolaYoon on Twitter. The author lives in Los Angeles, CA.Daniel
Local Teen Accepts Destiny, Agrees to become Doctor, Stereotype  
   It’s Charlie’s fault that my summer (and now fall) has been one absurd headline after another. Charles Jae Won Bae, aka Charlie, my older brother, firstborn son of a firstborn son, surprised my parents (and all their friends, and the entire gossiping Korean community of Flushing, New York) by getting kicked out of Harvard University (Best School, my mother said, when his acceptance letter arrived). Now he’s been kicked out of Best School, and all summer my mom frowns and doesn’t quite believe and doesn’t quite understand. 
   Why you grades so bad? They kick you out? Why they kick you out? Why not make you stay and study more? 
   My dad says, Not kick out. Require to withdraw. Not same as kick out. 
   Charlie grumbles: It’s just temporary. Two semesters only.
   Under this unholy barrage of my parents’ confusion and shame and disappointment, even I almost feel bad for Charlie. Almost.
 
Natasha
My mom says it’s time for me to give up now, and that what I’m doing is futile. She’s upset, so her accent is thicker than usual, and every statement is a question. 
   “You no think is time for you to give up now, ‘Tasha? You no think that what you doing is futile?
   She draws out the first syllable of futile for a second too long. My dad doesn’t say anything. He’s mute with anger or impotence. I’m never sure which. His frown is so deep and so complete that it’s hard to imagine his face with another expression. If this were even just a few months ago, I’d be sad to see him like this, but now I don’t really care. He’s the reason we’re all in this mess.
   Peter, my nine-year-old brother, is the only one of us happy with this turn of events. Right now, he’s packing his suitcase and playing “No Woman, No Cry” by Bob Marley. “Old-school packing music,” he called it.
   Despite the fact that he was born here in America, Peter says he wants to live in Jamaica. He’s always been pretty shy and has a hard time making friends. I think he imagines that Jamaica will be a paradise and that, somehow, things will be better for him there.
   The four of us are in the living room of our one-bedroom apartment. The living room doubles as a bedroom, and Peter and I share it. It has two small sofa beds that we pull out at night, and a bright blue curtain down the middle for privacy. Right now the curtain is pulled aside so that you can see both our halves at once. 
   It’s pretty easy to guess which one of us wants to leave and which wants to stay. My side still looks lived-in. My books are on my small IKEA shelf. My favorite picture of me and my best friend, Bev, is still sitting on my desk. We’re wearing safety goggles and sexy-pouting at the camera in physics lab. The safety goggles were my idea. The sexy-pouting was hers. I haven’t removed a single item of clothing from my dresser. I haven’t even taken down my NASA star map poster. It’s huge—actually eight posters that I taped together—and shows all the major stars, constellations, and sections of the Milky Way visible from the Northern Hemisphere. It even has instructions on how to find Polaris and navigate your way by stars in case you get lost. The poster tubes that I bought for packing it are leaning unopened against the wall. 
   On Peter’s side, virtually all the surfaces are bare, most of his possessions already packed away into boxes and suitcases.
   My mom is right, of course—what I’m doing is futile. Still, I grab my headphones, my physics textbook, and some comics. If I have time to kill, maybe I can finish up my homework and read.
   Peter shakes his head at me. “Why are you bringing that?” he asks, meaning the textbook. “We leaving, Tasha. You don’t have to turn in homework.” 
   Peter has just discovered the power of sarcasm. He uses it every chance he gets. 
   I don’t bother responding to him, just put my headphones on and head for the door. “Back soon,” I say to my mom. 
   She kisses her teeth at me and turns away. I remind myself that she’s not upset with me. ‘Tasha, is not you me upset with you know? is a phrase she uses a lot these days. I’m going to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) building in downtown Manhattan to see if someone there can help me. We are undocumented immigrants, and we’re being deported tonight.
   Today is my last chance to try to convince someone—or fate—to help me find a way to stay in America. 
   To be clear: I don’t believe in fate. But I’m desperate.US

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