The Sun is Also a Star
Show Notes:
In this episode, host, Julia Washington, and her guest Natalie Katona discuss the Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon.
This episode is shared with permission by Natalie,
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Transcript:
Julia: Welcome to Jollipop's Book Club, where we read and compare book to screen adaptations to their screen counterparts. I'm your host, Julia Washington, and this is a remix and a replay of our live book club discussion about The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon. I want to thank Natalie Katona for giving permission to release this playback in its full form.
Julia: The replay of the book club is always reserved for the patreon only community for those who cannot show up But still want to hear the discussion So when Natalie and I were the only two in book club this month She reached out and said that ran like one of our podcast episodes that we collab on So if you wanted to run it in its entirety you have my permission So I'm grateful to her for that.
Julia: There are some things that are missing that I've edited out because we use a lot of media references to compare and contrast sometimes during book club. So I took those out because copyright use, right? So here is an edited version. of our book club replay. If you want the full version, you got to join us on Patreon, patreon.
Julia: com slash Julia Washington. Just pick that book club tier and you will have access to all of our book club replays, including this one and all future bookish things as well. Okay. Now, here we go to the show.
Julia: The Sun Is Also A Star was first published on November 1st, 2016 by Delacorte Press. The film was released May 17, 2019 and stars Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton. Um, a little bit about our author, Nicola Yoon is a Jamaican American author. She attended Cornell university and majored in electrical engineering.
Julia: After taking a creative writing class for fun, she discovered she loved it and attended Emerson college for their master of creative writing program. One of the things I love about her is that she is a self described hopeless romantic and loves love, and you can really see that coming through in her work.
Julia: Other books she has written include Everything, Everything, which is her first novel and was also adapted for film. And she has contributed to collaboration novels like Blackout, Whiteout, and Meet Q. Her latest novel Instructions for Dancing is about a young woman, Evie, who no longer believes in love. One day she witnesses a couple kissing and sees their entire future all the way to the bitter end.
Julia: Meanwhile, she finds herself learning to dance, and her partner is adventurous and daring, all things Evie is not. But as the two dance together, could she be falling in love? This book is being compared to Dirty Dancing meets, um, Some Mystical Things. Okay, now let's get into the, pitter patters, that's because my dog just walked in.
Julia: Hi cutie!
Julia: Hey friends, it is jelly pops book club live day and we read the sun is also a star and I actually want to open up with the, um, uh, trailer from the movie because I think it's interesting. Okay. So I have to tell you the trailer is a lot better than the movie. It
Natalie: always, no, it's not always.
Julia: That's not always true, but in this situation, in my humble opinion.
Julia: Because, so here's the prologue to the book. We're running book club a little differently today because it's just me and Natalie in your ear holes. And um, you, you, this movie isn't streaming for free. She was going to come with the movie perspective, but you know, the streamers are mean and they're not streaming it anywhere for free, which is bullshit.
Julia: So we're just going to like, she, we're going to just have a dialogue. She's going to ask questions and we're going to talk about it for you guys. So here's the prologue, Natalie. So basically you guys are getting like a free episode of Natalie and I's collab. Oh my god. So here's the prologue. Carl Sagan said that if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent The universe when he says from scratch, he means from nothing.
Julia: He means from a time before the world even existed. If you want to make an apple pie from nothing at all, you have to start with the big bang and expanding universes. Neutrons, ions, atoms, black holes, suns, moons, oceans, tides, the Milky Way, Earth, evolution, dinosaurs, extinction level events, platypuses, homo erectus, Cro Magnum, man, etc.
Julia: You have to start at the beginning. You must invent fire. You need water and fertile soil and seeds. You need cows and people to milk them and and more people to turn that milk into butter. You need wheat and sugarcane and apple trees. You need chemistry and biology for a really good apple pie. You need the arts for an apple pie that can last for generations.
Julia: You need the printing press. And the industrial revolution and maybe even a poem to make a thing as simple as apple pie. You have to create the whole wide world. Is the book told from
Natalie: her perspective or his
Julia: perspective? It's told from multiple perspectives, hers, his, and then the characters they run into slash the universe.
Julia: Got you. So it's a log.
Natalie: Was definitely written by him. He's very intense.
Julia: Well, he's a poet. So it does. So what I loved about this book, the audio book version, honestly, is the way to go with this book because they have a woman reading Natasha. They have a woman reading Daniel, and then there's the narrator.
Julia: Who's the same voice for all of the other. Characters, right? Like, um, which is amazing. So, so her family came here from Jamaica on a travel visa when she was eight years old. It was just the three of them. Mom, dad, Natasha, how they get found. And then two years later, they have a boy. They have a son. Who becomes, you know, who's born here.
Julia: And we all know the 14th amendment because of slavery, lets anybody born here be American. Dad is a very talented actor, has big, big, big dreams, but you know, um, the world hates black people. So there's that. Um, so he finally gets an amazing gig. So it kicks off with, we open up and we find out that Daniel's parents are immigrants from South Korea.
Julia: They want their children to have the American experience, but still be Korean, go to the best Ivy league schools. So his day is he has a Yale admissions interview with a Yale alumni. Her day starts with she has one more chance before they are deported that evening at 10 p. m. to go back to Jamaica to meet with the immigration person to see if their case can be reopened because her father decided they will voluntarily remove themselves, which was one of two options.
Julia: I forget what the second option was, but the mom and she. Her mother, Patricia, and she have been fighting it the whole way. And the dad's like, fuck this. My life didn't turn out the way it should have. And I'm so mad and I'm bitter and angry. We can't do anything. And she and her mom are like, we are trying to stay.
Julia: Meanwhile, her little brother's like, can't wait to go to Jamaica. All right. She's like,
Natalie: Men only thinking about their perspectives on current issues. That's news. Right? Right. Not a dad looking at you trying to do something and go, But what if we did me some more? Like, what if I got what I wanted some more?
Julia: And when I tell you, there is a scene where Natasha overhears her father telling her mother, The three of you got in the way of my dream. That's why they killed us.
Natalie: Because someone told them that their dreams were valid and then they're like, ah, if only I didn't have all these
Julia: women around. Meanwhile, Daniel's like, I want to be a poet.
Julia: I have big emotions and I lean into them and I am inquisitive and da da da da da. But his parents are like, you must become doctor. His older brother, Charlie, is currently on, um, academic probation from Harvard, the first best, uh, school college in the States. Yale is the second best. Their children are only allowed to do this prescribed path because it is the American dream.
Julia: They also own a black hair care salon, which they go into the history of why so many Korean folks, um, in New York own black hair care salons, which that was very interesting. The book has themes of. Immigration, as we know, family, as we can tell, and then also, uh, love, which the movie reduces all of those other things down so much so and focuses only on the love, which bothers me because the other characters in the book that we briefly meet are very rich and well thought out for maybe being given 600 words.
Julia: To describe them. For example, here's Irene. This one's a little bit more. So I, it says Irene, a history. So Irene is the security guard at the immigration place who's standing there scanning all your shit as you're coming in. Okay. And Natasha makes sort of this like assumption about Irene that's wrong because Natasha is 18 and angry because she wants to have her normal high school career.
Julia: So it opens with Natasha is not at all correct about Irene. Irene loves her job more than loves it, needs it. It's almost the sole human contact she has. It's the only thing keeping her total and desperate loneliness at bay. Bay. Every interaction with these applicants saves her life just a little. At first, they barely notice her.
Julia: They dump their items. Blah, blah. Okay. So then when she gets... To describing because she describes about her day and what she interacting with people and then it goes into last night was a particularly bad night for Irene, the impossible hungry mouth of her loneliness wanted to swallow her in a single piece.
Julia: This morning. She needs contact to save her life. Like that tells you so much in just like 50 words, right? So then you get this girl, then she's talking about Natasha, but doesn't name her. She says about her. Um, she drags her eyes away from a retreating bin and up to see the next applicant. It's the same girl, meaning Natasha, who's been coming every day this week.
Julia: She can't be more than 17. Like everyone else, the girl doesn't look up from her bin. She keeps her eyes focused on it. She like, like she can't bear to be parted from the hot pink headphones and her cell phone. Irene lays a gloved hand on the side of the bin to prevent it. It's slide out of her life and onto the conveyor belt the girl looks up and Irene inflates She looks at she looks as desperate as Irene feels Irene almost smiles at her in her head She does smile at her.
Julia: Welcome back. Nice to see you Irene says but only in her head Okay, then she goes on to describe Irene looking at Natasha's phone case, which is that Nevermind album cover art from Nirvana. And then we meet Irene again later on her lunch break. And she listens to Nirvana and realizes, Oh, Kurt Cobain is talking to me.
Julia: I should do, I should do what, like the last line is, Oh, well, whatever. Nevermind. I should, I should probably, I should probably end my life tonight. Because this song is exactly how I'm feeling. And I that's, this is what I need to do. And then you're just like the fuck. And then we get Irene later in the epilogue.
Julia: So Natasha and Daniel go throughout their day. Natasha at one point is like, I need to call the worker who recommended the attorney to say, tell that security guard lady, thank you. Cause some interaction, she's grateful for the interaction because the interaction makes her late for her appointment, which causes her to visit it with a different caseworker who then gives her the number for an attorney who can then maybe get her case.
Julia: Reviewed. So her family doesn't have to leave. So then the guy in the epilogue, we learn tells Irene that girl called and said, thank you. Doesn't there's no other, they don't know why. So then Irene's like, Holy shit, I have value. I'm not going to do that thing anymore. And then completely changes her life becomes a flight attendant, just living her best life.
Julia: And then fast forward 10 years in the epilogue, she sees Natasha and says, Thank you. Oh my God, I'm getting emotional. I also want to. You saved my life. Thank you so much. Blah, blah, blah. And you're just like, if that's not a full circle universe moment. I don't know what is
Natalie: I also at one point and it was when I was watching the Guadalupe Paltrow movie up in the air.
Julia: Uh, love that movie completely underrated. Maybe
Natalie: if I was a pretty play attendant, my life would be better, but I get motion sickness.
Julia: So yeah, that's podcasting. It is. It is. Um, and that's an element that we don't see in the film, which I get it. Yeah.
Natalie: I mean, what are you going to cut? From the era's tour. If not all of the little skits that the background dancers are doing, um, when they produce it into a film to not make it five hours
Julia: long, right.
Julia: And they really get into the racial prejudices, um, of like Daniel brings Natasha to the store and like what his parents think and vice versa. Um, So not just, so we have immigration, love, family dynamics, but also race. And it's done in a way that isn't like, see how the world is racist. It's done in a way where you're just like.
Julia: Oh, yeah, I guess, I guess, yeah, other communities would have racial prejudice, but we just don't really talk about it because it's actually not as harmful. I mean, racial prejudice is harmful, period, but not in the way that white people are racially prejudiced. Right. Oh, I'm sorry, do white
Natalie: people do something?
Natalie: Do they do something? Weird.
Julia: Um. And then when she goes into, she gets into also like, why her dad, while Natasha's dad is the way that he is. And then by the time you get to Samuel Kingsley, A History of Regret Part 4, you're just, like, I at least was incredibly empathetic to this guy because he has so much talent as an actor and the world still devalues it.
Julia: Like at one point in the memory, Natasha and her brother go to see her dad perform in a raisin in the sun because him celebrating the success of the play and his performance because he received a standing ovation. No other actor in the show did. Uh huh. And Natasha is sitting there thinking if he was bad, then I would understand why he wasn't a successful actor.
Julia: But he's good. So this doesn't make sense that my father can't work and be successful as an actor because he's good. He's talented. His American accent is spot on. His performance was moving. So what the fuck? And he's so elated and puffed up because of the standing ovation and the reception of his performance.
Julia: He gets drunk with the cast. Hits a parked police car. No! And then recounts his life story to this police officer who then learns, because Samuel Kingsley tells him, he's undocumented. No! Gets arrested, um, immigration is called, which is what triggers this whole process of them getting deported. I
Natalie: never think anything's gonna happen to them.
Natalie: So they
Julia: just... Trust people. And that's exactly what the author hits on. She's like, Samuel Kingsley is in this denial because he thinks everything's going to work out and they'll be fine. Meanwhile, his daughter, his 17 year old daughter and wife are doing everything they can to try and stay.
Julia: Listen,
Natalie: number one, the reason why he couldn't get an acting job is because it doesn't matter if you're good. It matters if your daddy knew someone. What
Julia: up, Nepo baby? Can I tell you that that scene, cause I read this book many years ago, the first time I heard that story, that part of the story, I cried because it's like, again, it doesn't matter if you're talented.
Julia: And I hate this bullshit about how like, if you're really talented, success will find you. And it's like, No. What have we experienced you and I together and separately in the last three years? We have that lived experience of being talented and producing really good work and working our asses off really, really hard and still just seeing very small amounts of growth, if any growth, if any recognition.
Julia: And it's like when I read that from Samuel Kingsley, I was like, sir, I understand. Um,
Natalie: I'm also, I need everyone to strike from their vocabulary, like, well, if you work hard, success will also come your way. No, I work very hard. I work very hard. And during my COVID layoff, I found out that I worked very hard my entire adult life just to still make wages that could put me on food stamps.
Julia: Huh? Uh huh. And it's like, you and I work every single day. Every day
Natalie: and
Julia: most nights and most nights and it's like, it's like how, how much more so I understand like Daniel Kingsley or Samuel Kingsley, should you have said those things in a fit of emotion about your family? Absolutely not at the same time.
Julia: I completely understand not the family thing, but that I'm doing. Auditions. I'm like, I'm doing all the work. I'm doing all the steps that are supposed to get me there and it's still not getting me there.
Julia: Okay, so back to Natasha and Daniel. Yeah, I did
Natalie: a 30 second trailer and I'm like, I don't like that Daniel kid. He seems very flippant about everyone else's problems. He's like, I understand that you're gonna get deported, but have you ever been moved by a song lyric like I have? Like, he's
Julia: that guy. He doesn't tell him.
Julia: Oh, she doesn't tell him? He doesn't tell him. So he's flippant because he has no idea. That he's not going to see her tomorrow. He's envisioning and imagining this future with Natasha and is so excited about it and like is feeling some kind of like motivated and energized way and he has no idea she's leaving at 10 o'clock at night.
Julia: Here's the worst part, Natalie. Here's the worst part. The attorney that she's supposed to see, James Jeremy Fitzpatrick, which they change him in the movie to be Jeremy Garcia? Because it's, uh, John Leguizamo in the movie who plays the attorney. We love him. Love him. I was like, not mad at this edit because we need more John Leguizamo.
Julia: Always, uh, forever. I might watch Romeo and Juliet after this just for a nice little fix. No, not Leonardo DiCaprio. Okay, fine. Tu Wong Fu then, right? Cause he's in Tu Wong Fu. I'll watch Tu Wong Fu
Natalie: then. Rest in peace,
Julia: Patrick Swayze. R. I. P. So, there, so, so, Jeremy Fitzpatrick is the alumni meeting slash the attorney.
Julia: Neither Natasha nor, uh, Daniel know this. So she goes to her attorney meeting and he's like, girl, I got you. I know exactly what we need to do. We can get this voluntary removal fixed because your brother was born here. And she's like, great. I can't, I'm so excited. I get to stay. I'm so excited. I get to have a normal kid senior year, which includes homecoming prom, touring colleges, dah, dah, dah, dah.
Julia: Leaves. Well, One of the things that the whole book is about fate and destiny and all these things and earlier in the book like that scene that that snippet that they showed where he pulls her out of the way from getting hit by the car that happens in the book that car ends up hitting Jeremy Fitzpatrick.
Julia: And like, the reason why her original meeting is delayed is because of him having to go to the hospital. Well, when she arrives, we learn that his legal secretary, that's the moment when she finds out Jeremy's in the hospital, his legal secretary is like, holy fuck, I love this man. Like, how did I not know it sooner?
Julia: They have all these backstory things that are happening. So then it gets to the point where he has to go to court to go content or whatever to get the immigration case, you know, the voluntary removal revoked. But instead of going to court, At some point in the day. He also realizes he's in love with his legal secretary at the same time.
Julia: So instead of going to court, they go to a hotel and make love for the entire afternoon.
Julia: So Natasha's family's fate could have been changed. Had he gone to court. So
Julia: then when Daniel shows up for his alumni meeting, he sees Natasha's name on the folder and is like, what's that about? And the attorney is like, I don't know what you're talking about. Let's talk about you going to yell. Why do you want to go to yell? And he's like, I don't want to go to yell. So it's this whole thing of like, why are you doing what you parents are telling you to do?
Julia: That's stupid. And he's like, you don't understand being an immigrant kid. If that's what you believe, right? Like did that back and forth. So then he's like, what's up with my girl. What's up with my girl? I'm so excited she's staying. And he's like, Ooh, actually, I couldn't get it overturned. Parentheses because I was fucking my secretary.
Julia: But he doesn't tell the kid that part. Right? So then Daniel's like, What the fuck are you talking about? Like, she's excited. She's staying her family did it. And he's like, Yeah, no, they wouldn't overturn the voluntary. So then Daniel gives him this impassioned speech about how, like, you ha like, this is not like, I'm gonna tell her.
Julia: This is not okay. You fucked up. You promised her. She was looking forward to this blah blah.
Julia: So then Jeremy and his secretary discover, based on this speech that Daniel gave, that yeah, we need to be together. I've always had bad timing. I love my wife and kids. With that said, we're not good together, so I'm out. Wait, Jeremy was married? With two children. And now he's
Natalie: leaving because he's like, what about my hot new piece of ass, my secretary?
Natalie: It's so cliche.
Julia: I know, no, but Natalie, it's written as, I didn't realize that I, my soulmate was actually my secretary until I almost died.
Julia: I feel privileged people
Natalie: love to use bait as an excuse for their bullshit.
Julia: Truly, truly.
Natalie: Privileged people are like, it was written in the stars. It has nothing to do with me being my, uh, Ethan Hawke's daughter.
Julia: I was destined. Yeah. Yeah. Um, in between all of that though, they do spend the Daniel and Natasha do spend the day together and do all these things. Like he's like, there's these, there's this list that, you know, proves ways, proven ways to fall in love.
Julia: They pick a couple of things off that list and do them throughout the day. It's actually really kind of sweet and romantic. Um, they go to Nordic bomb. I think it's how you say it. It's Korean karaoke. Like they truly do spend the day together, getting to know each other, sharing details and secrets and, you know, things they've never shared before with anybody kind of stuff.
Julia: Um, ultimately I did really, I do really enjoy the book because I love the stuff that she talks about when it comes to immigration and the cultural clashes. Like the love story to me is secondary because I find one, I actually hate that YA lean so heavily into romance. Like that really bothers me. Well, in
Natalie: like life altering romance.
Julia: Correct. Like I'm dying of
Natalie: cancer. Yeah, I'm dying of cancer. Thank God you're in the bed next
Julia: to me. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, but just watching this girl go through the struggle and pain of like My life is changing for a second time because of something my parents chose, and I hate that I have no say.
Julia: That to me was really compelling. The parallels between Natasha's family and Daniel's family, because both of the mothers have made sacrifices so the family could propel in a way, and in Daniel's family, that proved successful, and then the mother gets rewarded with art. Cause she gets gifted a paint set and like starts painting again and it turns out she's really talented and she used to paint all the time in Korea.
Julia: The difference on Dan and Natasha's side is that her mother is like working really hard and doing all these things and is never rewarded. The reward never comes for her.
Natalie: It doesn't matter how talented or hard you're working.
Julia: Hmm. So, I found those, I found those parallels really compelling. The changes in the movie piss me off.
Julia: Because they lean
Natalie: so heavily on the YA gush of it all. Yeah.
Julia: Here's the thing. Go ahead.
Natalie: Here's the thing. I truly hate the, we only have 24 hours together so let's make it the best 24 hours of my life. Like, I don't want to spend my last days in New York falling in love with you. I don't know
Julia: you. I don't care how hot you are, whatever that I don't know you.
Julia: She
Natalie: probably has friends. She probably has favorite
Julia: places. Her best friend was on a college tour on the west coast. That's why she wasn't present. She's got one friend.
Natalie: Just the one.
Julia: Maybe? I don't know.
Natalie: That seems real convenient for
Julia: this Daniel dude. I know, right? They didn't really talk about other friendships.
Julia: Besides But you know what I'm saying? I don't remember her name. Maybe I don't want
Natalie: to be strong. Maybe I want to lay in my bed until it's time to get on the plane.
Julia: There's nothing wrong with that. I don't want to see shares believe. Sometimes I'm tired of believing. Sometimes I'm tired of believing, but no, he
Natalie: just, I don't like his attitude in the trailer.
Natalie: I was like, Oh God. It gave a lot of like, internet dating hinge vibes, where it's like this is how men think that they need to talk to you to get you in bed and to take you out for free dinner.
Julia: Yeah. Where he's like,
Natalie: and that one line where I was like, I hated that. And you're like, that's a great line. And I'm like, no, I hated everything about that. So complicated.
Julia: But also it's not real. Like if a man said that to me in real life, I'd be like. Sick. I don't think you deserve to know where I live.
Julia: It's like how we all
Natalie: thought that Edward Cullen was real fucking romantic watching her sleep every night before she went to bed. And then we all watched it play out with Robert Pattinson and I was like, I just feel really icky. I just feel real
Julia: icky. Yeah, so like some of the other changes that they made from the book to the movie, she's leaving at, uh, 11 the next day, not 10 o'clock at night, so it removes it, it, it, it changes the level of pressure to get this attorney to see her.
Julia: They also changed, um, like, the only change I was fine with, obviously, was John Leguizamo, because, yes, please. So, wait,
Natalie: so does she not get a new attorney? Because I is like, I thought I misinterpreted something at the beginning. And the reason that she was thinking Irene is because her appointment got pushed back.
Natalie: So it gave
Julia: her a better lawyer. So what happened was, she was late to her appointment with her caseworker because Irene was fondling and staring at her phone case. Um, which made her four minutes late to her appointment with her caseworker. So when Natasha finally gets through and she's four minutes late and they're like, sorry, you can't see her.
Julia: She starts making a scene. So then this other caseworker comes out and was like, Hey girl, come on, like I'll take you. Let's see what's up. And he's the one who gives her the card for Jeremy Fitzpatrick. Gerald or Fitzpatrick or Fitz something. But he fumbles it. But Jeremy fumbles it. But in the beginning of the book, we're like, okay, Jeremy's got this.
Julia: He's the one. He's the guy. He's the guy you need. And he only fumbles it because he's getting a piece of ass. After he
Natalie: almost got hit by a car. Lisa, being hit by a car can make you believe anything. Adrenaline is
Julia: a lie.
Natalie: Right. So Jeremy fumbles it. Does anyone pick it up and actually fix it? Or it's just fumbled and she goes?
Julia: Fumbled and she goes. Because at this point, by the time she learns that he's fumbled it, it's after 6pm. In the day, which is what makes that 10pm deportation time so important in the book because it's like you're literally it's 8am when the, when the book starts ish. So we literally have 12 hours, 14 hours to make this shit happen.
Julia: And by the time she finds out, now there's three hours. And he takes her to karaoke? During the day. Oh. Because her first meeting, they're spending time between her meeting and his meeting. So his got pushed back to 6pm, and hers was like at 11am.
Julia: And in the movie, they changed her appointment time They're like, sorry, we can't get you today. And she's like, what? And maybe if you come at noon, but he hates it when I do that kind of shit. But in the book, the legal secretary is like, girl, we got to get you in here. Like the earliest I can do is 11 AM.
Julia: This is, you will not be, you will be okay. He is your guy. This attorney's got you versus the book being like, we don't know if we can see you today. So that made me mad then. What else did they change? Oh, Charlie, the brother of, um, Daniel, they make him this like alternative. He's got earrings. He's got tattoos, deadbeat, but like, no mention of him being like the model minority, which is what he's trying to fight against.
Julia: Like, he like Charlie Only Dates White Girls, Charlie Hates Being Korean, Charlie Hates Being Korean American, Charlie Hates Himself, is like another, like, uh, subplot of the book, which causes tension between Charlie and Daniel, because Daniel's like, Mom and Dad sacrificed a lot, I gotta do what I'm supposed to do, even though I don't want to do it.
Julia: And so, like, that's a subplot that gets removed because it's like, Charlie's like, I've got tattoos in the movie, whereas in the book, he very clearly has internalized racism that he's battling.
Julia: So she
Natalie: goes, and then that's it? She doesn't come back?
Julia: There's no... Do you want me to read you the epilogue? Or summarize the epilogue? Yeah. Summarize it. They leave and she decides that, and she's not happy about it. She does her senior year. She puts on a fake Jamaican accent to fit in because she's tired of people making fun of her for her American accent.
Julia: And then eventually she starts falling in love with Jamaica. And so it's 10 years later and she's on a plane. We don't know where the plane is going. They never, the author never tells us and that's when, oh, I'm gonna get emotional again. And
Natalie: then that's
Julia: when Irene thanks her. That's when Irene sees her and is like, oh my god, thank you so much.
Julia: Um, and then, and then we learn more, we learn that Natasha is like, that she is going to grad school, grad school? I think it's grad school and that's how she got back to the States. Oh, actually it doesn't look like they tell us.
Julia: Yeah, they don't really tell us why they're all in the same plane other than telling us that Irene is a flight attendant without even explicitly saying it. She's like, Irene's in a jump jump seat. And I was like, that's what flight attendants sit in. Um, and then she's telling the story, but then she also is like, she observes that this boy is sitting in 7 a chewing on his pen writing earlier in the book.
Julia: We learned that Daniel likes to chew on his pen. We, earlier in the book, they tell us, Natasha tells Daniel she wants to put pink in her hair, so then Irene's describing, um, an Asian boy with black hair chewing on the top of his pen in writing, and Irene's like, oh, he's, he's, he doesn't give a shit about what people think about him because he looks Asian.
Julia: It's like a crazy person right now. And then, and then she looks over and sees an 8C. So 7A, 8C, we've all been on a plane and sees a girl with earbuds, no more, no more the head over the, over the ear with a fro with pink hair. And she's like, that face looks familiar. I know that girl. How do I know that girl?
Julia: And starts going into her files in her mind. And it's like, Oh my God, that's the girl that saved my life. Walks up to her and says, this is going to sound strange, but may I tell you a story, please? Tells her the whole story. Daniel overhears it and is like, Natasha. And she's like, Oh my god, Daniel. And then the book ends.
Julia: She decided
Natalie: that Daniel didn't give a shit about what people said about him because he's chewing on a pen so clearly he looks insane.
Julia: Chewing on a pen, writing. That's weak. Just kind of living in his own world, not really paying attention to the world around him.
Natalie: That could have, that, that could have been hit, hitting harder.
Natalie: Just chewing on, just doing this, makes you insane. So many people do, so many people chew on their pen. But he's insane. I mean, I guess good for them. If anyone, if anyone, From my past comes creeping up to be like Natalie. Is it time? I'm gonna be like no it is not but
Julia: thank you Even though this book is considered a young adult novel, the themes of family and self identity are so relatable.
Julia: Yoon discusses immigration through the lens of teens, which feels more gut wrenching than when we see it through an adult's lens. I'm so glad our Jelly Pops books chose this book for our September read. If you want to join us, in October we are reading The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Delilah Harris. We meet on October 15th.
Julia: And in order to join us on zoom, you can become a jelly pops book club member over on Patrion over there. We host a variety of fun things and you get more than just a podcast. You get book reviews and essays. It's generally the best way to keep up with us online. You can also find me on tech talk or Instagram at The Julia Washington Jelly Pops Book Club is produced by me, your host, and if you enjoyed this conversation, write us a review on Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Julia: Tell us what you think and tell us what you'd like to see us compare on the show next. Friends, thank you for spending time with me today. Until next time.
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