Review!: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Following on from the awesome Everything Everything I was incredibly keen to read Nicola Yoon's next novel The Sun is Also a Star. Set on one day in New York City, this love story is about fate, destiny, the Universe and all those sickly sweet things. However this story is so powerful and unexpected that even the insta-love didn't bother and usually that REALLY bothers me. Natasha believes in science and facts and is definitely not sold on love and fate. On this particular day she is half a day away from being deported with her family to Jamaica. Having come to the United States as a child and with college less than a year away, Natasha is spending the day fighting for one last appeal to remain in New York. Daniel is a poet at heart but as the son of Korean immigrant parents he is expected to follow a very specific path to Yale and med school. In the city for an alumni admission interview for Yale later that day, Daniel is on his way to get his pony tail hair cut when he comes across Natasha deep in a headphone moment.

The love story that follows takes place across the next twelve hours, with point of view switching between Natasha and Daniel, with extra chapters of backstory on seemingly non important characters they encounter through the day. It's a testament to Nicola Yoon's writing that reading about two 18-year-olds falling in love over the course of half a day was not cringey, or eye-roll-inducing. The stakes felt real and high with Natasha's deportation looming and with it all her visions of her future. With Daniel thrown in the mix this felt like an even more cruel twist of fate.

If you loved Everything Everything I think you'll love this too. Don't be put off by the one-day-love-story premise, this is a clever, thoughtful, emotive book that was such a joy to read.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Zoella Book Club Reviews: Everything Everything, We Were Liars, Fangirl

Helloo! When the Zoella Book Club books were announced I was very pleased to see three titles that I had already read and enjoyed immensely. Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon, E. Lockhart's We Were Liars, and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, are all excellent choices for the book club for sure. It's great that so many people will get to read them! I will definitely be reading through some of the other titles from the list too, but I reckon I've read the best ones! Here are my reviews for these wonderful books:

Everything Everything

Nicola Yoon's Everything Everything is the story of a teenage girl, Madeline, who is allergic to absolutely everything. She can never leave her house, which was been carefully kitted out with state of the art air filtration systems, an air lock at the front door, clean white walls, even her books arrive decontaminated. Madeline is home schooled through online tutors, and her longterm nurse, Carla, checks her vitals several times through the day. The only people Madeline usually sees in person are her mum, who is a doctor, and Carla. When a new family moves in next door, she begins to speak with the son, Olly, through miming and notes held up at their windows, and then IM messages. Madeline is very wary of the dangers of the outside world due to her disease, but she is especially worried about the effects of falling in love. Narrated in first person by Madeline, this book is deals with love, trust, freedom and isolation perfectly. Having the main character unable to leave their location created this great limitation where, because things were kept simple, down to one setting, the author was able to fully explore this space and spend more time focussing on characters and development, which resulted in me really caring for the characters. Simplicity really is often the key. There were so many moments that gave me chills, and I was rooting for Madeline and any chance of freedom she could get, to live a 'normal' life.

We Were Liars

I highly recommend reading this book. I felt completely drained after reading it, which has to be a sign of a well written book. Most reviews and recommendations I've seen on We Were Liars give absolutely nothing away, so I may follow suit on that. But essentially it is mostly set on a family's private island on the coast of Massachusetts, where 17-year-old Cady spends the summer with her cousins. What I will say is that from the beginning there is some great... experimentation with the creative writing. There are metaphors that you don't realise are metaphors until you're half way through them and figure the character's heart hasn't actually fallen out her body and rolled down the lawn. It turns to poetry at points, to great effect. It's really great to see this kind of clever writing in a young adult book, young adults definitely deserve to be seen as clever readers. The reader follows with Cady as she slowly regains her memory, the story slowly revealing itself to the reader through the same fog the character is experiencing. There's romance, friendship, family, tragedy, heartbreak, memory loss, the works. Go read it now! ...And then make sure you have somewhere to have a lie down when you finish it.

Fangirl

Fangirl is the story of Cath and her twin sister Wren, heading off to college for the first time and growing apart as they each find their place away from home: Wren being socially adventurous and outgoing, Cath being mostly afraid to leave her dorm room. Cath is deeply involved in the Simon Snow fandom and has a huge online following for her fanfic. I got right into the Simon Snow fanfic, (I really want the Simon Snow series to be real- there's room in this world for Harry and Simon), and I loved that it was about fandom, BUT I didn't really end up liking the main character Cath or main love interest Levi. I don't know what happened, I connected with her at the beginning when she was too scared to find the dining room and hiding in her dorm and eating tacos with her dad. I think I found her relationship with Levi a little off putting, he seemed sort of fatherly towards her... it was kind of icky. All that aside, I enjoyed reading it and I am kinda thrilled that the world of fandom has been so sensitively explored in the capable hands of Rainbow Rowell. If you haven't already, I really recommend reading Carry On, which is Rainbow Rowell's own exploration of the Simon Snow characters and is so much fun! 

Review! Everything Everything- Nicola Yoon

Nicola Yoon's Everything Everything is the story of a teenage girl, Madeline, who is allergic to absolutely everything. She can never leave her house, which was been carefully kitted out with state of the art air filtration systems, an air lock at the front door, clean white walls, even her books arrive decontaminated. Madeline is home schooled through online tutors, and her longterm nurse, Carla, checks her vitals several times through the day. The only people Madeline usually sees in person are her mum, who is a doctor, and Carla. When a new family moves in next door, she begins to speak with the son, Olly, through miming and notes held up at their windows, and then IM messages. Madeline is very wary of the dangers of the outside world due to her disease, but she is especially worried about the effects of falling in love. Narrated in first person by Madeline, this book is deals with love, trust, freedom and isolation perfectly. There were so many moments that gave me chills, and I was rooting for Madeline and any chance of freedom she could get, to live a 'normal' life.

Five things I loved about Everything Everything:

1- The references to books. Madeline reads The Little Prince over and over and gleans new meaning from it each time she does.

2- The 'reward if found' notices written in the front of each book, and the perfect way this is used in the books' ending.

3- Madeline's spoiler reviews were very funny. I think it maybe would've been cool to see a little more of her online life, as it's mentioned she has friends online, but I did love how these little snippets of her blogging were used.

4- The limitation of isolation. Having the main character unable to leave their location created this great limitation where, because things were kept simple, down to one setting, the author was able to fully explore this space and spend more time focussing on characters and development, which resulted in me really caring for the characters. Simplicity really is often the key.

5- The boy-next-door romance. Once you accept that this is in essence what the book is about, it becomes this brilliant play on a classic, where the characters do fall for each other very quickly, but through this carefully orchestrated series of interactions over various mediums.

Everywhere Everywhere is out on Sept 3 and is available for preorder on Amazon. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.