There are many themes and messages in the novel The Sun is Also a Star , and it is easy to boil it down to the idea that fate plays a role in our lives and that we must be willing to follow destiny. However, I believe that there is...
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a deeper message, because the events that occur in the novel do not necessarily seem predestined or fateful all the time.
In fact, only the return of Daniel and Natasha to the same coffee shop seems to follow the idea of destiny in fate. Instead, the central message seems to be the idea that suffering and pain, in whatever form they take, can lead to beautiful things. For instance, even though Jeremy is injured by a car, he eventually falls in love with and marries the doctor who attended to him. And while Daniel is heartbroken over Natasha's departure, he pursues poetry and attends a different college as a result, which leads him to a happier life. Natasha, also, having been deported, is able to eventually be a top student and get a graduate student visa to return to New York, where she is reunited with Daniel.
It all echoes the scientific overture at the beginning—in relation to the Big Bang. The cosmic act of apparent destruction and chaos brought about beauty and life itself as it coalesced into the universe we know today.
The central message of The Sun is Also a Star is that the power of love can transcend social, physical, and emotional barriers.
Natasha and Daniel are immediately positioned as dichotomous characters—Natasha with her science obsession and opposition to the idea of romance, and Daniel with his unconstrained interest in love. They also have different backgrounds, and Daniel's dad opposes his interest in Natasha because the relationship is interracial. Somehow, their attraction eventually overcomes their differences and the lack of familial support, despite Natasha's initial resistance and Daniel's arguments with his father and brother.
Their love also triumphs over the legal issues that face Natasha and her family. Threatened with deportation, falling in love seems impossible, and yet it happens. Then, once Natasha is deported, staying together seems difficult, and it doesn't happen. But they meet again years later because of chance, and the author implies they will end up together. The story thus ends on this hopeful message about the potential of love to eclipse all.
When first picking up The Sun is Also a Star, it is hard to differentiate it from any other Young Adult novel that deals with the themes of coming of age or young love. What sets the novel apart is deeper than those themes that recur throughout so much YA fiction. The themes of the novel rest in the details of the book; and details themselves become a theme in the novel.
The book focuses on the relationship between two New Yorkers: Natasha, a young Jamaican American girl who is about to be deported with her family, and Daniel, a young Korean American. Through their discussions in the book, we learn their feelings on concepts like fate and science, and the idea that the universe may conspire to save us.
More than that, through Natasha's incredibly scientific-minded character and Daniel's more freewheeling and romantic spirit, we are able to see a dichotomy in belief and how it can impact our notion of faith in an uncertain universe. Essentially, the novel argues, through these two characters and their love story, that we need to allow for the possibility that a certain type of magic exists. We need to believe in the possibility that there are no accidents.