A review by unicornsbookshelf
Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

adventurous inspiring mysterious slow-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 
Disclaimer: I have voluntarily reviewed this book after receiving a free copy from the publisher via Edelweiss+, thank you!

Like many others, the first thing that got my attention with this book was the cover. It’s stunning. Beautiful. One of the most beautiful covers I’ve seen this year and the summary promised an enchanting tale that seemed like something I’d absolutely love.

Star Daughter is a story about, well, a daughter of a star. Sheetal’s mother left her and her father behind and returned to the sky, leaving Sheetal to deal with her heritage alone. And she has been doing pretty good until she starts hearing the stars call to her, her silver hair stop letting themselves be covered with black dye and suddenly she has to deal with a fire burning inside her that almost sends her father to his deathbed. Determined to heal him, Sheetal decides to seek her mother out to ask for a drop of her blood that supposedly has healing abilities.

The world we’re introduced to is truly magical. The Night Market, the star courts in heaven are so heavy in this mythical, fairytale-like atmosphere. Everything Sheetal and her cousin Minal see is described in a way that you can just feel the unearthly wonders emitting from the page. The stars are free of typical earthly problems like paying taxes, doing laundry and it shows in their behavior and the way they live. They’re etheric and watch humans in a way curious people in the zoo watch animals. Their world is like a beautiful fever dream and the reader can feel the difference between it and Sheetal’s earthly life very vividly. I also loved the idea of stars inspiring people and how art-focused everything was. It didn’t only focus on music or painting as a form of art but also sculpting, writing, and even theatre.

Another thing I loved was the writing style. The descriptions of the court, the food, the world were all so vivid and beautiful. The author crafted a wonderful atmosphere in a unique world and every sentence is a pleasure to read.

Sadly a book can’t be 5 stars just with worldbuilding and beautiful writing. So let’s move on to the things that didn’t exactly do it for me.

First of all - the characters. In YA fantasy I feel like the characters are one of the most important things that make me fall in love with the book. In Star Daughter, however, the characters just weren’t for me. I couldn’t connect to Sheetal and the way she was constantly moping about something. It was hard to enjoy the plot and the setting when the main character constantly reminded you how much she didn’t want to be there. Moreover, I felt like Sheetal was too easily swayed and influenced by others - her opinion on things changed each time someone talked to her about something and her decisions were mostly influenced by others. She just felt more like googles through which we were watching the amazing world we were introduced too than an actual character. I also really hated her romance with Dev - there was no chemistry between them and their whole conflict made me tired. Only at the very end, they got a bit more spark to them, before that constantly reading about how hot Dev was in his (description of the most casual outfit possible here) and how much Sheetal wanted to kiss him was making me really tired. What I did enjoy was her struggle with deciding where she belongs - on Earth with her father or in Heavens with her mother and grandparents and also how much she struggled with reconnecting with her absent mother and working out if she can forgive her for leaving.

Other characters didn’t really get my attention either. The star characters were all lacking basic humanity at times, which made them completely unrelatable and while one may argue that that was the point, they were also lacking any kind of charm or spark that made other non-human races in fantasy appealing to me. I did like Minal, Sheetal’s human cousin, who really deserved better than being a sidekick to a girl who couldn’t even appreciate her and the girl performing with puppets whose backstory was far more appealing than Sheetal’s and she was much more deserving to be in the competition. That’s another thing I didn’t really like - it was hard to cheer on Sheetal in the competition when everybody around her was right - as a half-star, she did have unfair advantage over other performers. I didn’t feel like support nepotism in a book when my friends experience it in real life in college and work. I will say the ending fixed some of those issues I had but the bad taste stayed.

I also didn’t feel invested in the plot, which tells a lot since I’m usually a huge fan of the competition trope. Sadly there was barely any competition and most of the time Sheetal spent moping and avoiding practice to mope even more. The stakes didn’t feel high and the conclusion was unsatisfying. I’ve managed to read two books in between before I finished this one because I hoped that maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it. Turned out I was, it just wasn’t something I’d enjoy.

All in all, I think Star Daughter is still a very important book due to its representation and inclusion of Hindu mythology and culture. I also think people who enjoy atmospheric books more than they care about characters will really enjoy this one. I see many stellar reviews for it and that just proves to me that I didn’t enjoy myself because of the personal preference not because the book is bad. 
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