On normal days, silly Young Adult novels are dealt with quickly and savagely in flash reviews. I don’t particularly like the genre (I detested this one, for instance, and this must be one of the worst books I’ve ever read) and therefore, they don’t particularly change the way in which I see the world. Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star is another Young Adult book that didn’t feel quite satisfying. However, its topic, coincidence versus fate, mirrored recent events in such a striking way that I just had to write a full post about it. Want to know why, and which amazing things I experienced? Read on!
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (she also wrote this other Young Adult novel which I discussed here – though that one certainly wasn’t good enough for a By the Book!) about Natasha, a Black teenage girl who is forced to travel back to her native country Jamaica later today, and Daniel, a Korean-American boy who doesn’t want to be a doctor even though his parents demand it. Natasha is cynical and trusts in science, while Daniel is a dreamer and believes in fate. They meet and fall in love in two hours. Of course they do, because they’re seventeen years old.
I started reading this book because one of my students really liked it, and I always ask them if I can borrow it so I can tell them how much I liked it, too (or lie about liking it). They then know I show an interest in them and their hobbies, and think I’m quite an ok person. Sometimes, anyway. So, I had to give this one a go to.
More importantly, I started reading this book when I was queueing to get Grounds tickets for Wimbledon, the tennis tournament. I’ve been there before, of course, as you can read here. It’s very easy: you turn up early – as in, ungodly-hour, what-on-Earth-am-I-doing-here, you-must-be-insane early. My alarm was set at four in the morning. Thankfully, the sun was shining brightly when we arrived at the Queue. Since it would be several hours before we’d enter the Gates of Wimbledon, I pretended not to be exhausted and started to read. It was an ok book, but I hate it when teenagers think that they can fall in love in one second and then think they’ve met the one. It all feels quite delusional. Still, I kept on reading – it wasn’t like I there was anything else I could do, of course.
Two hours, three litres of sun screen, and a hundred and fifty pages of The Sun is Also a Star later (yes, this book really is that simple – by now Daniel was adamant the universe wanted him and Natasha together, while she vehemently denied this, and I saw it coming for ages that of course they would be together) I received a phone call by Phil, a man I had met at our AirBnB the night before. We started talking, and of course I asked him about Wimbledon. He had just returned from it, and he had tickets for two more days. I told him I was quite jealous, for he had proper tickets, while we plebeians simply had to hope we’d be allowed in. He then went on to say that he might do something for us. But don’t get your hopes up, he added. We wouldn’t, and forgot all about it.
So, Phil called me and said that yes, he could do something for me. If I gave him my email address, so he could forward it to someone who could get us Centre Court tickets. No, really? No, what? No, this can’t be true, can it? No wait, are you a scammer? I asked him. No, he said. (We later discussed how terribly naive it was to ask a scammer if he’s a scammer, but hey, at least I tried.) Turns out he really wasn’t, and my continuous outcries of disbelief eventually turned into an elated YES! All I had to do, however, was buy said tickets. All I had to do was to wait for an email.
In The Sun Is Also a Star, everything seems to be going right for Natasha and Daniel. But then something happens, and it might all go wrong. Well, that’s what I felt like while waiting for that one email. Since Wimbledon Park was packed, with ten thousand people sitting there, eating there, and checking their phones for the latest results on the tennis courts which were so close and yet so far away from us, the internet wasn’t really working. It was so slow that I started to fear I would never receive that email. My mum said, Daniel-like, that everything would be ok, because it was fate. I, very much like the realistic Natasha, said that no, we were doomed.
But no! Just like in every single book, there’s always the special something that happens which allows everyone to live happily ever after. My special something is my boyfriend, whom I called (which was also quite an ordeal) and begged to check my email for me. After a while he called me saying that indeed an email had arrived. Then he said he’d use my laptop to transfer the money. Then he paid the tickets. Then I received a confirmation email. And then I had two tickets for Centre Court, which must surely be the best place in the world! We left the Queue and almost ran to the Gates. We were in. How? What? Why?
In The Sun Is Also a Star (if you haven’t realised by now: this post is not really about the book, for it’s quite a simple, predictable, cliché, both stylistically and plot wise, book about two teenagers who are very different but nevertheless think they are in love with each other after literally minutes – instead, I use Yoon’s novel as a device to write about my perfect Wimbledon experience) the two main characters somehow start believing in the idea that they were meant to be together. They start to believe that all the things that happen to them that day simply had to happen, that the weird woman who made Natasha be late for a meeting and the man who talked to Daniel about a religious experience were there because they were destined to be there and bring them together.
By now, I started to think that the main characters were on to something. Somehow, my cold, cynical heart that doesn’t believe in fate or karma started to thaw a little. Somehow, I had almost convinced myself that I was destined to talk to Phil. Somehow, I felt like I deserved those tickets. And that’s how somehow, we ended up in Centre Court in unbelievably good seats.
In The Sun Is Also a Star, Daniel and Natasha keep telling themselves how lucky they are, and how they start dreaming of a better future. Well, my mother and I felt like we were dreaming all day. We pinched each other continuously, unable to process how lucky we were. We watched all the tennis heroes we had seen on tv so many times. We applauded after every point. We cheered on our favourite players. We almost cried when one of them lost. We almost cried again when another did the same thing. We watched the best tennis players in the world, on the best court in the world, and this was an experience nobody would ever take away from us. We were very, very happy.
The happiness hasn’t passed yet. I still feel like I could wake up any second, only to find out I’m still in the Queue, hoping to be let in. Yoon’s novel ends with a twist even my Young-adult hating mind appreciated. We started our days in London with a twist I could not possibly have anticipated. Maybe it was all fate. Maybe our Centre Court day was simply meant to be. Or maybe it was just coincidence.
Like I said: on normal days, I don’t consider Young Adult novels worthy of more than a flash reviews. The thing is: this wasn’t a normal day.
What did you think of The Sun is Also a Star? Which book would you read if you had to wait for hours and hours for something really amazing? Would you ever consider waking up at the crack of dawn for anything? Could you please forgive me for not writing about this book? Please let me know in the comments! Also, don’t forget to follow me for more book-related posts!
The Open Book 