Normally I don’t buy into a lot of YA romance because I’m pretty cynical at the realism of finding HEA in high school. I mean, I know that a lot of people do marry their high school sweethearts; I just remember what I was like at that age. Growing out my bangs was enough to send me into existential crisis – no way did I have the emotional bandwidth to manage a serious relationship.
But YA has been proving me wrong lately – there is so much amazing fiction coming out (much of it romance) that I’m willing to concede that I’ve been totally wrong. The Sun is Also a Star sucked me in and I totally bought the love story between the main characters. In fact it was so engrossing, it made me forget the news for awhile: I was sitting on the couch reading when my husband came in the room to turn off CNN because he couldn’t take it anymore. Cable news had been on in the background of my reading session for two hours and I hadn’t even realized it.
The Sun is Also a Star utilizes the “one day in New York City” meet cute, but with a twist. Natasha is high school senior, star science student, and also an illegal immigrant. She remembers little about her native Jamaica, but after her family’s immigration status is discovered when her father gets a DUI, she finds herself about to be deported. She’s spending her last day in the United States trying to find a way to stay her family’s deportation, and she’s not having much luck.
During her quest she (literally) runs into Daniel. He’s the son of Korean immigrants who came to the United States legally and who have big dreams for their sons. Daniel has an interview scheduled with a Yale alum that’s part of the process of getting into the school. Daniel is on the Ivy League path to becoming a doctor like his parents want, not a poet like he wants, and he’s miserable.
There’s a moment of kismet when Daniel and Natasha meet. Both are facing overwhelming futures designed by their parents and are struggling to find their place in the world. Recognizing a similar disaffection in each other, they spend the day together. Daniel takes Natasha to Koreatown where he shares with her his favorite things about his culture. She talks to him about her passion for science. All of this could be incredibly contrived, but it’s not. The Sun is Also a Star manages Daniel and Natasha’s day-long courtship in a way that feels totally organic and believable.
Daniel is a romantic; Natasha is a cynic. She has a lot of anger, and she’s entitled to all of it. Her life is being disrupted in a way that will separate her from her friends, fracture her family, and ruin her chances at the college she wanted to attend. Despite all of that, she’s charmed by Daniel and his patience and genuine interest in her. They don’t discuss deportation or Yale or parental disappointment, but rather things like time travel. All of this works because we get such deep POV from both characters, both have strong voices, and all of it flows beautifully.
Daniel muses:
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.
I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m experiencing right now. The only slight (possibly insurmountable) problem is that I’m pretty sure that Natasha is not.
Natasha follows up:
I don’t tell Red Tie [Daniel] the complete truth about what I would do with a time machine if I had one. I would travel back in time and make it so the greatest day of my father’s life never happened at all. It is completely selfish, but it’s what I would do so my future wouldn’t have to be erased.
Instead I explain all the science to him. By the time I’m done he’s giving me a look like he’s in love with me. It turns out he’s never heard of the grandfather paradox or the Novikov self-consistency principle, which kind of surprises me. I guess I assumed he’d be nerdy because he’s Asian, which is crappy of me because I hate it when people assume things about me like I like rap music or I’m good at sports. For the record, only one of those things is true.
Besides the fact that I’m being deported today, I am really not a girl to fall in love with. For one thing, I don’t like temporary, nonprovable things, and romantic love is both temporary and nonprovable.
Of course Natasha and Daniel do fall in love, on the worst possible day for both of them, but somehow that romance works beautifully.
There’s also a lot going on in this book with regard to race, the American dream, and parent-child relationships. Both Natasha and Daniel feel like outsiders. Natasha has always been aware of her illegal status and how fragile that makes her life in the United States. They immigrated so her father could follow his dream of being an actor, a dream that faltered, and she’s watched how his bitterness toward the promise of “the American dream” has poisoned her own chances of success. Daniel meanwhile doesn’t want the life his parents have pushed so hard to create for him. His older bother, similarly stifled, has been kicked out of Harvard and now all of the pressure is on him to be the successful one.
Every relationship in this book is complex and nuanced. Yoon also head-jumps into bystanders, including Natasha’s immigration lawyer and a security guard she passes, creating this complex framework of lives that are all interwoven in tiny but significant ways. All of this makes for an incredibly satisfying read.
The Sun is Also a Star was enough to change my opinion on YA romance. It’s an outstanding, immersive, delicious book, and I urge those wary of YA fiction to give it a try.
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I love “one day” stories. When I read YAs in my head, lots of times I think of it as a “happy for now” ending rather than a HEA, but maybe I’m reading them wrong 😉
I know what you mean about being cynical/skeptical though. One of my problems with Glee (waaay back when) is that as much as shipped Rachel and Finn together, I did not see them as “together forever” type of couple. I certainly didn’t want it to end the way it did, but I didn’t see them getting married and living “happily ever after” either. And that’s true of a lot of “teen couples” on TV for me.
I highly recommend Like No Other by Una LaMarche. It’s a YA love story with another meeting of cultures and a realistic ending that doesn’t pander.
This sounds absolutely incredible, and I just moved it to the top of my TBR pile. I adore earnest YA romances, but am extremely picky about how they’re written (ie., anything with a love triangle is DNF). @Elyse what are the other recent YA releases that you can recommend?
My daughter just bought this yesterday. It sounds amazing. I might have to read it and I normally dont care for YA.
I loved this one so much!
This sounds so cool! But as a…sort of immigrant myself (grew up abroad, now in the home country, one foot on the boat always) I tend to get really emotional about these stories. Can someone please spoil me as to what happens in the end? I’m not sure I’m willing to put myself through the emotional wringer if it ends the way I think it does
For the last two years or so I’ve been reading a lot of YA. I have had my eye on this. I may just take the plunge and one click.
It’s just I’ve recently bought 3 new/new to me YA and 2 new Adult books.
HOLY FRICK FRACK THIS SOUNDS LIKE CRACK ON CHOCOLATE ON FRENCH FIRES!… (I meant “fries” but my Dyslexic brain took over & now I’m sticking with “french fires” cause reasons.)
My butt has only read Simone Elkeles’ Perfect Chemisty, so YA ain’t my bread & butter. BUT! The hella intense internal conflict/POV got me wanting to press buy.
Quick. Somebody stop me.
@Shash I’m with you, girl! I would LOVE for the ending to be spoiled!
The realistic subject matter + the shit climate/issues immigrants cope with all over the world + my emotional fragility means…PLEASE SOMEONE TELL THE ENDING!
@Patmeal, I’m just getting started on the YA bandwagons o I don’t have may recommendations yet. But I LOVE Jenny Han’s Lara Jean series.
For those who need a spoiler:
Natasha is deported and does have to say goodbye to Daniel. Years later Natasha is on a plane and the flight attendant is a woman Natasha knew from the immigration center (we got her perspective in a chapter, and it dealt with her own clinical depression). Because the book is about kismet, the flight attendant, Irene, tells Natasha how she used to look at Natasha’s Nirvanna phone case, and how it made her look up the band. Irene was super depressed at the time, suicidal even, but she found solace in the music Natasha unwittingly introduced her to. Then Natasha, amazed, speaks and all of a sudden someone stands up in row in front of her and says”
“Natasha?!”
And the last words of the book are: “Daniel!”
So the HEA is heavily implied.
@Jacqueline I’m not gonna stop you. I’m an enabler.
@Elyse OMG OMG OMG I LOVE THE ENDING! In a way, dare I say it, that actually makes the HEA far more believable than had it gone any other way?
Also CURSE YOU, WOMAN! And by “curse you” I of course mean PRAISE BE UNTO YOUR ENABLING WAYS. Obvi. LOL
I haven’t read your full review because I started reading this book yesterday and ohmygosh I LOVE IT but I’m not done yet. About 30% through so far. I’m so glad you reviewed because more people should know about this amazing book!
@Liza S That moment when you get jealous of a total stranger for currently reading a book YOU NOW HAZ A GREAT DESIRE TO PUT IN YOUR BRAIN!
#RomanceFangirlProblems LOL
@patmeal some I have enjoyed, varied degrees of romance, Jellicoe Road, The Serpent King (maybe still on sale), Dumplin, Carry On, Simon vs. The Homosapiens Agenda, Anatomical Shape of a Heart, and I’ll Meet You There. They all have a romance just degrees of how prominent.
I second the Lara Jean rec.
Also have enjoyed Stephanie Perkins, Jandy Nelson, and Emma Holly.
UGHHHHHH
“Normally I don’t buy into a lot of YA romance because I’m pretty cynical at the realism of finding HEA in high school.”
ELYSE. As a lede, this is the equivalent of “Romance, of course, is poorly written fiction for bored housewives with lurid images of Fabio on the covers.”
I realize you’re setting us up for BUT I HAD A REVELATION WITH THIS ONE YA BOOK! Nonetheless, you’ve made the kind of sweeping ill-informed generalization that’s PRECISELY what non-romance-readers do when opining about romance.
YA is a big tent, and most are emphatically not concerned with HEAs (that’s you, reading with your romance novel hat on) but rather in the young protagonist being happy for now (and sometimes, not even that). Teenagers aren’t thinking about settling with one human being 30 years from now. That’s just not a big thing in YA.
The fact that your first sentence and last sentence seem to view “YA romance” and “YA fiction” as interchangeable is evidence of your own mishegas. AGAIN, the equivalent of a dude critic who discovers one well-written romance and types, full of manly pontificate-y revelation, “Perhaps not all romance novels are 50 Shades of Grey.” AGAIN, I GET that you’re trying to make the point that thanks to Yoon you don’t think all YA romance is lousy or uninteresting now, but the way you’ve framed it is still dismissive and still comes off as clueless about the genre. There’s a ton of amazing YA without romance in it at all, as well as YA that has romance as one element in a coming-of-age narrative.
UPSHOT: The Sun Is Also a Star is a great YA book; there are a LOT of great YA books. Some address race, class, mental illness, LGBT identity, body image. Some are hilarious; some are dead serious. Some are all poetical; some are minimalist. Some are HISTORICAL. Some are PARANORMAL. Some are URBAN FANTASY. IT CRAY!
Sorry to rage. When a devotee of one maligned genre makes dopey assessments of another maligned genre, I get agita.
@marjorie I AM GOING TO DISAGREE WITH YOU USING MY BRAIN VOMIT THAT LIKELY MAY NOT MAKE ANY SENSE BY THE TIME I’M DONE! (I suck at the thinking thing, but here goes…)
I think the problem is that YA is definitely not romance, and yet it utilizes so many of the cornerstones of the romance genre.
If YA is not “happily ever after,” then by definition…should it be called romance? The one universal thread in our genre is the HEA.
But if a book is going to market itself on the back of romance, then I think it’s fair to judge that book based on the criteria of the genre.
So YA romance is youth + HEA. And yet, those two ideas are completely conflicting. I agree that you can’t say ALL YA are the same, just as you can’t say ALL romance is the same.
And yet, you can say they are similar; the similarity in YA is the youth factor.
I don’t think Elyse is saying ALL YA BOOKS ARE UTTER SHITE, but rather that because of their fundamental building block (the youth) being paired with our genre’s fundamental building block (romance) they are hard pills to swallow no matter how you slice it.
That doesn’t mean they’re good or bad, just that they’re not for everyone. I think it’s alone the same thought that hey, I love romance novels but I don’t like romantic suspense. Sure, there might be good ones out there. But, because its fundamental building block is external conflict (yawn), it doesn’t matter HOW wonderful it might be…I’m still going to hard no it.
(Sorry if this crap made no sense. I make no sense. Sheesh.)
DAMMIT I SWEAR I PROOFREAD THAT TWICE…and now I see two grammatical errors regardless. MY KINGDOM FOR AN EDIT BUTTON!
(Have I mentioned how much being Dyslexic is a pain in the ass? Because being Dyslexic is a pain in the ass.)
And of course in rereading my commentary, I realize I lost the topic thread a few times. My point is this; I don’t see anything wrong with passing on a subgenre IF it’s done so for legitimate reasons.
Hell, I don’t mind people not reading romance novels if they have legitimate reasons. Maybe a person is aromantic. Maybe they prefer horror stories to smexy times/heart feels. Maybe they don’t like reading at all. All of that is cool beans to me.
People are people with different people opinions.
But if a person just turns their nose up at a genre for no other reason than to be an asshole…then yeah, they’re epic douche canoes.
@marjorie I’m trying to unpack all your comments and I’m pretty tired so this is what I have. I certainly didn’t mean to make you think I was maligning a sub genre of YA. That was perhaps poor wording on my part. I don’t buy a lot of YA romance because the HEA isn’t super belibavebe to me just as I don’t buy a lot of paranormal romance because I struggle with the fated mates trope. I’m not suggesting that this particular sub genre is anyway *less,* it just doesn’t work for me.
I can, however, read a lot of romance suspense where somehow everyone falls in love despite being shot at a lot, which is pretty silly when you think about it. So is the number of dukes in regency romance.
So again, I was really saying that normally this sub genre isn’t my cup of tea, but I liked this book tremendously. I in no way meant to denigrate YA or any subgenre of YA or make any implications for those who read and write it.
There really is no shame in anyone’s reading game here. It’s why I love this site so much
@Elyse @bev Thank you so much for the recs! Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is one of my most favorite romances of all time, and I’m excited to check out the other titles.
@Jacqueline, I’m still gonna disagree with “So YA romance is youth + HEA.” “Romance” is not only a literary genre, it’s also a noun that means finding love. There is no implied or obligatory HEA in the latter. YA romance isn’t asking to be judged by its similarity to romance as a genre; in fact, most critics (me included) say that “YA” is an age designation and not a genre.
@Elyse, thanks for your graciousness in the face of my mouth-foaming. (Tho my points stand.) 🙂
@marjorie As a romance novel site we of course focus on that aspect of any book. It is very clear that I read this book as a romance reader for a romance site. I am putting a specific lens on it.
No one here is denigrating an entire genre of fiction. As devoted romance readers we’d be the last to do so. The review was intended to 1. illustrate whether or not I as an individual reader liked the book and 2. discuss what other romance readers might think.
Again we’re applying a lens because it’s a romance novel website.
I appreciate your defense of a genre you love (we defend a lot of fiction for women by women here) but I do think it’s misguided as there was no slight.
@Marjorie Then maybe this is a classification issue? If YA Romance doesn’t want to be judged by the parameters of the romance genre, then wouldn’t it be more logical were it labeled Ya Romantic Fiction?
Romantic Fiction does not inherently stipulate an HEA as a reader guarantee, while the Romance genre absolutely does. In truth, if it doesn’t have an HEA it is by definition not “A Romance.”
I have to disagree with you that YA shouldn’t be considered a genre, because…it is. YA is characterized by its similarities dealing with youth, and conflicts relating solely to those people. That by definition is “genre.”
With this in mind, I have to agree with @Elyse; there was no slight given against the genre of YA as a whole. But luckily, our community is the bomb so I think we’ll all just have to agree to disagree :).
@Elyse Bravo! I think that is a very fair statement. Even though SBTB is a site which reviews non-romance novel content (other books, movies, etc.), YA Romance is marketed as romance so it should be approached from that perspective.
I wonder whether the issues around YA romance have to do with how much YA is considered a genre designed FOR young people as well as ABOUT them. To the extent that it’s the former (in spite of having lots of adult fans), YA is one of the few modern genres where we retain certain ideas about the writing having some kind of pedagogical value. (For the record: from a historical standpoint, the VAST majority of what might loosely be called fiction written in any time and place was written with the idea of some kind of instruction as well as entertainment in mind. This has produced some great stuff, and I’m not saying it’s intrinsically a bad thing.)
The thing is, I think YA still struggles with being associated with having a “message” or “moral” in a way that other genres do not. People don’t worry about the idea of *contemporary* teenagers falling deeply in love and deciding to settle down together because it’s intrinsically impossible. The average age for first marriage for women and men in the US was 20 and 22 in 1960, and only 23 and 26 in 1990. Assuming that people didn’t marry within a year of meeting each other, a lot of those couples met in high school. Off-hand I can think of at least three couples who met as teenagers in the 1960s and are still happily married five decades later.
Obviously, times have changed, but I suspect people dislike the idea of CONTEMPORARY YA involving an HEA not only because the median age of marriage in the US has been steadily rising. It’s also because many of us think that the idea that your first love is/will be/should be your ONLY love interest is a dangerous or unhealthy idea that can lead to heartache (and is statistically speaking likely to have negative educational and financial consequences for vulnerable young women). We have the same concerns about teenage-true-love that we do about things like unrealistic body images…in other words, they’re moral objections, not objections based in “plausibility.”
I think this is what makes people uncomfortable with YA romance that features HEA. It’s not that it CAN’T happen. As Elyse said, there are far sillier tropes in other genres of romance. It’s that we’re not sure that it SHOULD happen, still less that we want to send a message that it should to potential teenage readers. (Personally, I think the message that a hereditary aristocracy who own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the country are all witty and handsome and charming is at least as toxic a message to send, but that doesn’t mean I don’t read Regency romance. I understand people who avoid them though.) Such are the pitfalls of a genre which is automatically politicized in a way that books squarely aimed at adults are not.
Anyway, just musings.
@patmeal isn’t Simon wonderful?
I keep book pushing it onto friends. Some have had the, but it’s YA response, but those who have read it have loved it too.
Has SBTB reviewed it? If not consider it a book push.
I have to say I have not given the HEA at the end of YA romance a lot of thought. I’m good with a HFN ending too.
@Rebecca I really like this commentary! Because I think it underscores why a lot of romance readers (okay, why THIS romance reader at least) has an aversion to YA Romance.
On the one hand, we want an HEA because it is why we’re here. On the other, a YA HEA is inherently unbelievable for all the reasons you noted.
So if we read romance for the express goal to trust that a couple will be together until the end, is YA Romance by definition an oxymoron?
DUUUUUDE MY BRAIN IS ALL OF THE JAZZED RIGHT NOW. Damn our community and fandom is the best because we have all the best conversations.
@bev I don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking YA Romance or not putting too much thought into the topic. I think a lot of readers probably come at it like you do; an HFN is acceptable in place of the HEA.
It probably comes down to this very issue, that some can read YA and be satisfied by it for what it is while others (like my gigantor butt) have this whole internal conflict about it all.
tl;dr READER BRAINS ARE DIVERSE AND FASCINATING AF!
I love, love this book so much and your review really captures why. I couldn’t finished it once I started. At one point, I discovered I was laying on the floor reading it. I don’t really know why I was on the floor, but it worked.
This site appears to be intersectional feminist so I thought you’d like to know that referring to someone as “illegal” is considered offensive. Instead of “illegal immigrant” and “illegal status”, it is better to be phrased as “undocumented immigrant” and “undocumented status.” While someone might have illegally immigrated, that does not mean that they are illegal. Otherwise I enjoyed the review and will be on the lookout for this book.
@Soledad – Thank you for pointing that out. I really appreciate it, and will endeavor to do better in the future. Thank you (and since text holds no tone, please know I’m entirely serious and thankful for your comment).
I read the first paragraph or so of this review in a Barnes & Noble earlier today, bought it on the strength of that alone without wanting to read to much info about the plot and I just finished it. I am such such a fan. I will say though, I sobbed with my whole body at one of the little stories when we visited someone else’s head so if you’re sensitive, be ready! There’s such a realness to the way things work out for people throughout the book that is both heartbreaking and also really refreshing.