美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Love Is A Thing That Everyone Wants,' Says Author Of 'The Sun Is Also A Star'（在线收听）

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Star-crossed teens falling in love are always in fashion, in print and on the big screen. This weekend the film "The Sun Is Also A Star" opened. It's based on the bestselling book by the same name by Nicola Yoon. The film and the novel tackle more than just young love, as Christabel Nsiah-Buadi reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR")

YARA SHAHIDI: (As Natasha Kingsley) What does America mean to you?

CHRISTABEL NSIAH-BUADI, BYLINE: That's what Natasha Kingsley must answer to avoid deportation from America in less than 24 hours.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR")

SHAHIDI: (As Natasha Kingsley) This is my home. New York is my home.

NSIAH-BUADI: Nicola Yoon has also thought about this question. Like Natasha, the author moved from Jamaica to America with her family when she was a kid because her father wanted to pursue his dream.

NICOLA YOON: He wanted to be an actor. And America was just so much possibility, right? So you could be anything. You could get anywhere on merit. There's this big, wide world open to you. So that's what America's always meant to me as an immigrant.

NSIAH-BUADI: She grew up in Brooklyn. A talented writer, she was - to paraphrase her - led astray by math in high school. She went to Cornell University and built a career in finance. That was all before writing two New York Times bestselling books which have now both been adapted into Hollywood movies. That's a life fully lived by anyone's standards. She's passionate about fate, science and how we're all connected. So it's not entirely surprising that she sees immigration as a brave and hopeful commitment, one that also requires work.

YOON: It's like happiness, right? Happiness doesn't just come. You have to pay attention. You have to really fight for it.

NSIAH-BUADI: Readers are responding to the book's immigration angle. Sanura Williams is the founder of My Lit Box, a quarterly book subscription service and community that celebrates writers of color. She was initially drawn to the book's love story when it first came out in 2016, but the novel kept unfolding with new meaning as immigration emerged as a major political issue.

SANURA WILLIAMS: When I see the discussion online now, I think it's largely centered around the fact that, like, families are being torn apart. And it just feels a lot more real now.

NSIAH-BUADI: At its core, "The Sun Is Also A Star" is a classic romance novel. That's because Nicola Yoon enjoys writing about love in all its forms.

YOON: So many times you hear people sort of denigrate love stories. But honestly, love is the thing that everyone wants. And I don't just mean like romantically - love of your art, love of your friends, your family, your children.

NSIAH-BUADI: Her examination of love has created new and uplifting experiences for readers, says Sanura Williams.

WILLIAMS: It was nice to kind of see a story where this young black girl is just giving into whimsy and fun for the day. I don't see that often.

NSIAH-BUADI: Nancy Wang Yuen is a sociologist and the author of the book "Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism." She says Williams isn't the only person to feel this way. Movies featuring non-white protagonists are becoming increasingly popular. The reason? Changing demographics.

NANCY WANG YUEN: We know that it's going to be a majority people of color country. But right now, all that growth is happening amongst youth. Even white youth are growing up with, you know, youth of color. So it's like that is their reality.

NSIAH-BUADI: The film adaptation stays fairly faithful to Yoon's commentary on love and immigration. The cast is dominated by faces of color. And there is one significant character change. Natasha's lawyer, who is a white man called Jeremy Fitzgerald (ph) in the book, became Jeremy Martinez (ph) in the movie. Yoon is excited about the movie adaptation, but she's not letting it get in the way of her writing. She's got two novels in the works. She won't give the plot away, but one thing's for certain...

YOON: There's love involved. There's a lot of love in them.

NSIAH-BUADI: For NPR News, I'm Christabel Nsiah-Buadi in Los Angeles.