Ok, hear me out, even the cover of this book is beautiful. This book is beautifully written to the point that when there was a huge plot twist, I screamed in disbelief. This book was a heartwarming romance novel that I got for Christmas, I would never ever pick this book out for myself. I never expected to be interested in a book whose whole genre is people making out, but this one was much deeper than that (of course there was still making out). 

To start off, I love the main character, Madeline. She is amazingly written, so I will give you three reasons why she is one of the most realistic characters I have read about lately.

1. She’s biracial. As someone who is biracial, whenever I read about someone like me, I immediately fall in love with the book because there is not a lot of biracial representation. She is ½ Japanese and ½ Black. I like how her ethnicity wasn’t everything, that happens often in books.
2. She’s not perfect. I know, I know, I know, every main character isn’t perfect, but a lot are, or at least, their flaws are glamorized. Madeline’s flaws are presented in such a way that they appear suddenly, but you know they are always there. It’s like this; Say you know someone is super self-centered. You can see a little bit of their self-centeredness in everything they do, so when they do something really selfish, it doesn’t surprise you. It’s like that.
3. She’s relatable in a way that teenagers get. She is written for the readers, but she is so well written that you believe she could be one of the readers. She’s completely lovestruck, but it’s not all she is. She has a life beyond that. She’s a nerd, but only in a way where you have nothing but school and books. Madeline is a teenager through and through 

Now let me actually give you a book review, sorry about that little tangent.

Madeline is not allowed to leave her house, if she does she will probably die. Madeline has SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency), so she is basically allergic to the world. Almost everything could trigger a hospital visit. 

The only people that Madeline has contact with are her mother, her nurse (Carla, who is amazing by the way) and her architecture tutor, but even that is a rare thing. Madeline’s father and brother both died in a car accident when she was a baby, so she only has her mom.

Around her 18th birthday, Madeline gets new neighbors across the street. She is immediately star struck by the teenage boy, Olly. I don’t want to describe him in detail but let me just tell you that Madeline uses almost half a page describing him. The two of them hit it off and start emailing each other.

The book is really sweet and surprisingly chaotic at the end. I have never been in love, or even in like, but I think that Madeline and Olly’s relationship is an accurate representation of teenage romances. It’s a pretty good romance book that I would recommend. 

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.

This story is a narrative about two main character love interests: Natasha and Daniel, two young and intensely passionate people. Daniel believes in love, time, fate, and the cosmos, while Natasha is a firm believer of science and all things tangible and observable in nature.

The narrative opens with Natasha’s family being deported back to Jamaica the next day as a result of his father’s DUI, from which the authorities discovered that the family are undocumented immigrants in the United States. Natasha is prepared to do anything to stay in New York because she refuses to accept leaving America, her real home.

Meanwhile, Daniel, who is the son of a Korean immigrant family, is forced to pursue a medical career. He got a interview from Yale in which his parents think is his ticket to a good life. However, he has a passion for poetry. He knows that he has one day to decide whether to attend that interview or save himself from permanently losing himself.

To be quite honest, I was first a bit dubious about this narrative since I wasn’t really much of a believer in fate or the power of the stars to bring people together. However, as I continued reading I realized that we don’t have control over love, and perhaps it does depend on the little coincidences of life that bring people together.

This quote from the book is one of my favorites. “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” really explains how love is mysterious in its own ways and maybe really is determined by fate.

This book really is though provoking and brings many questions to the surface. For people who believe in fate and the stars: What really brings people together? Is it hormones as Natasha said? Or is it predestined by the stars and fate?

For people who don’t believe in stars and fate, and instead believe in science: How do we know for sure that our world was created by the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago? There are always things we can’t answer and will remain a mystery…

“How did we go from eyes as a survival mechanism to the idea of love at first sight?”…I guess we’ll never know.

– Aleena C.

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.