MC: What was it like to find out your book was going to be turned into a movie?

Yara was so great with my little girl, and Charles is so insanely attractive. I'm philosophical, so I think we're a natural fit. Those big questions are important to ask even when you're 40 and 50, too. A 17-year-old is a philosophical creature simply because they're 17-they're questioning the world and the meaning of life and existence, asking all of those big questions. I was trying to show that everything's connected in the world. One of my favorite quotes from him was, 'If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.' He would say everything's connected, and that was part of the spark. I love Carl Sagan because he had this great way of making science super human. There's a huge chain of reaction of things that happen that get you to this point in time.

When two people meet at a moment in time there's all of the stuff that got them to that specific place-the random events with other people they have interacted with that day, their families, their ancestors. Nicola Yoon: I really wanted to tell a love story through all of the things it takes to make a love story-all of the other people besides the people who are in love. Of course, their fate lies entirely in the hands of the universe. The latter, out next month, stars your faves Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton in a story about two teens, Natasha and Daniel, who meet and fall in love right before Natasha's family is scheduled to be deported. Indeed, Yoon never imagined both of her young adult novels, Everything, Everything (2015) and The Sun Is Also a Star (2016), would end up on the New York Times bestseller list and turn into major motion pictures. You don't know where your life is going to take you.' One thing leads to another, and you can never guess how.

I don't know if I would have gotten into writing if I didn't major in electrical engineering and worked in finance. 'They're both trying to get to a truth-the approach is just different. 'We talk about art and science as if they're opposed to each other, but I don't think they actually are,' she says. Quite frankly, if she wasn't a self-proclaimed math geek in high school who majored in electrical engineering at Cornell University, she may not be the accomplished author she is today.

The sun is also a star by nicola yoon