The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon
How have I not put in a blog post about this wonderful book yet? This somehow slipped through the cracks here, which is unforgivable. If you haven't read this yet, go read it. It's very good -- I'd put it up there with some of my favorite YA romantic reads, including Eleanor & Park, which is about as good of a recommendation that I can give for any book. For me, Rainbow Rowell is the sun around which all other YA authors orbit. The Sun Is Also A Star is Nicola Yoon's second book. The first was the enormously popular and adapted-for-a-movie smash Everything, Everything.
Natasha and her family are hours away from being deported back to Jamaica. They've been living illegally in the United States since just after Natasha was born, so New York City is the only home Natasha has ever really known. At the start of the day, Natasha is on her way to visit with an attorney who she hopes can keep the family from being deported. On her way, Natasha literally runs into Daniel, who is also about to have a monumental day. Daniel is on his way to a college interview for Yale, even though he has no interest in going there. Daniel was born in America but his parents are Korean, and he bears the full weight of his parent's expectations that he will go to Yale. It's an even heavier weight now that his older brother flamed out at Harvard. Daniel loves poetry and believes in fate, and is battling between his own hopes and dreams -- that don't include Yale -- versus those of his parents, which do include Yale. 
The book takes place over the course of this one fateful day, while both teenagers are dealing with their own major personal drama. Somehow they keep running into each other, and while neither really has the time to spend with the other, they very quickly find a common bond that will change both of their lives. 
Give this book to the teenaged hopeless romantics in your life, the dreamers (both the DACA sort and the daydreamers), or anyone who loves a book that makes you fall in love, cry with heartbreak, and walk away with hope in the same story.