The Sun Is Also a Star

What's inside (7 sections)

1. A Yale interview he wants to fail
2. Thirty six questions across Manhattan
3. Museums, Central Park, and the truth
4. Jeremy on the roof and what guilt does
5. What drags and who should read it
6. Key takeaways
7. FAQ

I picked this one because I loved Everything, Everything and wanted to see if Nicola Yoon could pull off an even harder trick, a whole love story in one day. She did, mostly. The Sun Is Also a Star was published by Delacorte Press in 2016, 348 pages, ISBN 9780553496680, and it follows Natasha Kingsley and Daniel Bae across New York for about twelve hours. She is Jamaican, practical, angry, out of time. He is Korean American, dreamy, polite, running late. Her family is being deported that night. He has a Yale interview that afternoon. They meet, argue about science and fate, and keep choosing to stay together a little longer.

What hooked me was the structure. Short chapters flip between Natasha and Daniel, then widen to strangers, a guard, a driver, a waitress. Yoon pauses for quick explainers on physics or hair or law. I liked those breaks. They make the city feel crowded and linked.

Natasha is seventeen and has lived in Brooklyn since she was eight. She speaks like an American teen, does physics homework on the train, wears headphones to shut out noise. Her papers say illegal, though she hates that word for herself. She loves facts because facts can be checked. Love cannot.

Her family is breaking that morning. Her little brother Peter packs boxes while playing Bob Marley too loud. Her mother Patricia moves fast and prays. Her father Samuel sits in anger and shame. A few months earlier Samuel got a small part in A Raisin in the Sun, his favorite play, the role he had waited years to play. Patricia refused to come on opening night. He drank after, drove, got stopped, and told the officer the family was undocumented. That one night brought ICE into their lives and set the deportation order.

So Natasha rides to Manhattan with a folder. She goes to the big federal building where USCIS officers decide things quickly and without much room for story. The security guard at the entrance, Irene, takes her time. She turns Natasha's bag over, asks about the phone case, makes her late. Natasha is furious. She does not know Irene has been thinking about ending her own life and is moving slow because she is numb. It is a small delay that changes everything, because being late pushes Natasha into a different line, to a new agent named Lester Barnes.

Lester is tired and kind in a tired way. He cannot fix her case. He does give her a card for Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald, an immigration lawyer who sometimes wins stays at the last minute. Natasha calls, begs the paralegal Hannah Winter for a slot, gets told to come back later that day. That appointment becomes the clock for the whole book. Be there at 4:30 or lose the chance.

A Yale interview he wants to fail

Daniel Jae Ho Bae wakes in Harlem to pressure. His mother Min Soo lays out his good shirt. His father Dae Hyun talks about Yale as if it is already decided, doctor after, money and respect after that. His older brother Charlie, once the perfect son, had to leave Harvard and now drifts around the apartment with a mean edge. Min Soo tells Daniel not to be like Charlie. Charlie hears it. Daniel leaves early to breathe.

Daniel does not want Yale or medicine. He writes poems in a hidden notebook. He believes in God in his own loose way, and in people being meant to meet. His parents came from Korea with little and worked long hours. He loves them and feels guilty for wanting something else.

On the train the conductor stops between stations and preaches about God over the speaker. Daniel gets off early and decides to walk and get a haircut before the interview.

He follows a girl into Second Coming Records because something pulls him. That girl is Natasha. Inside, her ex Rob is with a girl named Kelly near the bins. Kelly is slipping records into her bag. Daniel steps in, accuses Rob of stealing until Rob backs off. Natasha is not grateful. She thinks Daniel plays hero for strangers.

Outside, Natasha puts her headphones on at the curb and steps out without looking. A white BMW runs the light. Daniel grabs her arm and yanks her back. They fall. Her headphones snap. She yells at him for breaking them. He offers coffee to make up for it.

That save is the hinge. The BMW driver, a tired man named Donald Christiansen, was distracted and rushing. Yoon loves these ripples. A guard holds a bag too long. A driver looks down. A boy pulls a girl back.

At coffee Daniel learns she is Jamaican and loves science. She learns he is Korean American and writes poetry. He tells her about a psychology study with 36 questions that supposedly make strangers fall in love. He proposes they try it. She says love is chemicals and timing, not a quiz.

Still, she says yes to walking with him for a while. She has hours before the lawyer. He has hours before Yale.

Thirty six questions across Manhattan

They start the questions while walking uptown. Natasha answers with care, precise, funny, closed. Daniel answers open, eager, a little too ready to be known.

When Daniel says fate brought them together, Natasha lists ordinary reasons instead. Warm day. Skipped train. Broken plan. Daniel says maybe fate uses ordinary things. She says that proves nothing.

At the lawyer building Natasha tells Daniel to wait. She goes up, learns from Hannah Winter that Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald was hit by a car that morning and will be late. Natasha sinks. Another delay. She goes back down and finds Daniel still there. He postponed his own interview time to stay near her. That choice costs him later, and he knows it.

To fill time they ride to Harlem so Daniel can drop cash at his father's store. The shop works like a bodega for hair, narrow aisles, bright packs, a bell on the door. Korean immigrants own many such stores in Black neighborhoods, and Yoon faces that tension head on. Daniel first asks Natasha to wait outside, then feels ashamed and brings her in.

Dae Hyun does say something rude. He looks at Natasha's Afro and offers relaxer to make it smaller, smiling like he helps. Charlie mocks them both. Daniel pulls her out and apologizes on the sidewalk. He says his family is part of what is unfair sometimes. She remembers that he did not excuse it.

They eat at his favorite Korean restaurant. The waitress is short with Natasha and will not bring a fork. Natasha uses chopsticks without complaint. They talk about fathers, hers the dreaming actor who stopped trying, his the security seeker who never stops pushing.

Next door is the norae spot, a noraebang with tiny private rooms instead of a big stage. He sings an ABBA song and is good, loose and funny. Natasha picks a bleak Soundgarden song and sings badly. Then they kiss.

For a minute Natasha feels something she thought was gone after Rob cheated. She had told herself she did not care much when Rob left, which scared her.

Museums, Central Park, and the truth

After, the mood breaks. On the train to the Museum of Natural History Natasha goes quiet. In Central Park she tells him her family is undocumented and flies to Jamaica tonight unless Jeremy Fitzgerald stops it.

Daniel does not handle it well. He says they can still have today. She hears a boy who has never feared ICE. They part angry near the museum steps.

She goes in alone to the Hall of Meteorites. Natasha looks at rocks older than countries and thinks how absurd it is to call one meeting destiny when so many accidents made life at all.

Daniel writes sad poems on a bench. The narration fills in Samuel here. How he quit auditioning for years, drove a cab, drank more. How Patricia worked cleaning and care jobs and grew hard. How Peter thinks Jamaica might be an adventure.

Natasha returns to Fitzgerald's office. He is bandaged from the morning car hit and listens closely. He hears about Samuel's DUI and says he thinks he can file for a stay. Hope floods her. She runs out to find Daniel and tell him she might stay.

Daniel goes home to fight Charlie. They shove in the back of the shop. Daniel finally sees it. Charlie did not fail because he partied. He failed because at Harvard he was ordinary for the first time and could not stand it.

Dae Hyun gives the line that will hang over Daniel. Go to Yale, be premed, and I pay. Choose poems, and you are on your own. He says it with fear, not cruelty. He was poor in Korea in a way Daniel has never been.

They miss each other at the subway. Both drop coins for a violinist. Natasha reaches the Harlem store and asks Charlie for Daniel's number. He gives it, the one kind act he manages that day.

Jeremy on the roof and what guilt does

They meet at Fitzgerald's building because Daniel's Yale interview was moved there too. Same man, same afternoon, two futures. Natasha says she might stay. She asks Lester Barnes to thank Irene, since Irene's slow bag check started the chain that led to Lester and then to Fitzgerald. That thank you call will save Irene, who hears she mattered and calls for help. Irene later becomes a flight attendant.

Daniel takes Natasha to the roof first. The door is locked. A smoking guard lets them up because Natasha reminds him of his dead wife. On the roof they finish the 36 questions and stare.

Here Yoon puts the title idea plainly. Natasha explains dark matter, the unseen stuff that holds galaxies from flying apart. Daniel says love is like that. Natasha says the sun is also a star, it only looks special because it is close. What we call fate is closeness plus attention. Daniel says fine, then let me be close and pay attention.

I liked that they never fully agree. She keeps science. He keeps faith. They respect the gap.

Then Daniel goes in late to see Jeremy Fitzgerald. Hannah is crying. Fitzgerald admits he spent the afternoon with Hannah, his lover, instead of calling the judge about Natasha. He says he feels sick with guilt. He tells Daniel he could not stop the deportation after all.

This is the Jeremy guilt the book circles. Not a villain, a weak man who chose comfort. He was hit by a car that morning, survived, and still wasted the day. Hannah quits. His marriage ends.

Daniel has to tell Natasha in the lobby. She does not move. Daniel says he will ride home with her and go to the airport.

At her apartment the packing is almost done. Natasha finally faces Samuel. She says when they land in Jamaica he has to try as an actor, not just talk about trying. Patricia hugs Daniel like family.

In the cab to JFK they do the last part of the study, four minutes of eye contact. They say they love each other. She boards.

They try to keep it alive. Calls and texts wear thin. Natasha learns to love physics in Jamaica. Daniel goes to Hunter College part time, works, writes. Ten years pass. On a flight Natasha hears a familiar voice. Irene, now crew, recognizes her. A few rows away sits Daniel.

Yoon ends there, at the start of maybe. I liked that restraint.

What drags and who should read it

My criticism is the insta-love engine. Even with the 36 questions as cover, falling hard in twelve hours asks a lot. Daniel decides fast. Natasha moves from data brain to kissing in a norae booth within hours while deportation looms. Yoon has Natasha voice the doubt, but romance wins because the plot needs it to.

Some side turns feel neat. Jeremy's affair explains his failure a little too tidily. The violinist, the guard on the roof, the fork refusal, each arrives on cue. This New York sometimes feels arranged for the lesson.

I also wanted more of Patricia and Min Soo beyond worry and work. Yoon gives them a few strong scenes and then moves back to the teens.

None of that ruined it. The immigration core is specific. Not a speech about borders, but a folder, a DUI, a note in a file, a lawyer who does not call. The Korean family core is honest too. Shop customers, Yale as safety, poetry as risk, a brother who breaks under being best.

Read it if you like one day books, Before Sunrise with teens, or want romance that talks about class and papers without stopping the story. Skip it if insta-love breaks you, or if you need every side character fully grown. For me, at just over 300 pages in this 348 page Delacorte edition, it earned its last airport glance. The sun is also a star, ordinary and close. So was this day, ordinary and close, until attention made it shine.

FAQ

When was The Sun Is Also a Star published?

Delacorte Press published it in 2016. The edition cited here runs 348 pages and the ISBN is 9780553496680.

Who are the main characters?

Natasha Kingsley, a Jamaican teen facing deportation, and Daniel Bae, a Korean American teen pressed toward Yale and medicine.

Is it only a romance, or also about immigration?

Both. The love story shares space with undocumented status, family duty, and fate versus science, which is why classrooms use it.