The Sun is Also a Star

Description:

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true? 

My thoughts:

This book grabbed me from the prologue and stirred up the science nerdy girl that has been dormant in me for so long.  Yoon starts with Carl Sagan talking about making apple pie from scratch, not just with raw ingredients. No. It's Carl Sagan. He is talking about an apple pie from nothing at all. Big Bang, black holes, suns, oceans, life coming up from the muck. 

To make a thing as simple as an apple pie, you have to create the whole wide world.

That last line in the prologue is the essence of this book right there. If this were an essay, it would be the thesis. Worlds must collide. Dark matter, tides, extinction-level events. This is about two teenagers and romance and alternative worlds. It is about science and physics and the problem with immigration and race and ethnicity in America. This is about one day in New York. It is about broken dreams and loneliness. It is about time. 

And finally, as a former chemistry major who borrowed a chemistry book from my future husband and switched to English literature once we were together, this book is all about chemistry.