Genre 📚: YA Contemporary, Coming-of-age, Romance
Tropes 💁♀️: College road trip, Former friends to lovers
Rep ✔️: Chinese American main characters
CW ⚠️: Loss of a loved one, grief, anxiety, diaspora, brief moment of racism
Rating ⭐️: 4.5/5
On a surface level, All the Way Around the Sun is a sweet friends-to-lovers romance. FMC Stella has just moved to California, and she’s forced to reunite with her childhood friend Alan in an impromptu road trip touring colleges. Stella is still holding a lot of resentment toward Alan for abandoning her when they were kids, and she won’t budge, no matter how sorry he says he is. (And trust, this boy holds out numerous olive branches.)
It’s a cute setup, and there are definitely cute moments, but at its core, this book is about Stella dealing with grief. Nearly one year ago, her older brother Sam died while he was away at college, and now she’s terrified of having to go herself. She’s unable to talk to her parents about this fear, or about ANYTHING to do with her brother, because the family doesn’t really know how to communicate.
There are certain chapters where Stella is talking to Sam, and it’s pretty heartbreaking. These are the only times she seems to feel safe bringing up the past and talking about her feelings. But the further Stella and Alan get in their trip, she slowly opens up to him about everything — even her darkest thoughts. The relief and mutual understanding really comes off the page, making this quite the cathartic read. They both needed that. And, hell, so did I.
**Much thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All the Way Around the Sun will be released on September 30, 2025.
Sara Bechtol 