Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

Hey guys!
Today we’re gonna talk about a debut novel that came with one of the most stunning covers I have ever seen. Let’s see if the story inside is just as gorgeous!

Star Daughter on Goodreads

The Plot (according to Goodreads):

If the night sky holds many secrets, it holds Sheetal Mistry’s secret the closest. A secret that explains why her hair is the silver of starlight, or why some nights the stars call Sheetal by name.

Stars like her mother, who returned to her place in the constellation Pushya years ago. Since that day, Sheetal has been forced to hide.

But as her seventeenth birthday draws near, the pull from the sky is growing stronger. So strong that Sheetal loses control, and a flare of starfire burns her human father—an injury only a full star’s blood can heal.

Sheetal has no choice but to answer the starsong and ascend to the sky. But her celestial family has summoned her for a reason: to act as their human champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of heavens.

Desperate to save her father, Sheetal agrees. But nothing could have prepared Sheetal to face the stars’ dark history—or the forces that are working to shut the gate between the realms for good. 

The Rating:

I wanted to like this more than I actually did. There are a few issue I need to talk about, so let’s get down to it.
Initially, I was super excited that this book builds on hindu-mythology. I don’t know pretty much anything about that but I’m super into mythology stuff (looks at all the Rick Riordan, Neil Gaiman, etc. novels I read), so I was happy to learn about this. Only thing is, I didn’t. There is essentially zero explanation in this novel, as if the author expects you to be familiar with Hindu mythology already. I didn’t put down my book three times in during every chapter just to google stuff, so I feel like a lost was lost on my as I simply didn’t understand any of the references. I would have been happy had there been a glossary that gives you information (kinda like Rick Riordan always includes), but having some more depth in that regard in the actual text would have been optimal.

But that’s not the only complaint I have.

Most of the characters also fell flat for me. The main character Sheetal was annoyingly naive and her super intense infuation with her boyfriend was just weird. Especially since that guy had almost zero depth and there were just no sparks flying between them. I know I sometimes complain about uneccessary romance in books, but in this case I would have bought, if it just had been written in a way that was actually believable.

The world-building was cool and the author really paints a picture in your mind with all those gorgeous sceneries. I can see the vision was just as stunning as the cover promised it to be. But the actual competition that takes place in this beautiful star court was not it. It kinda felt like American Idol – Celestial Edition, am I’m not a fan of that. Maybe it just ties in with the lack of depth I felt throughout. Sure, there are moments where the author tries to make you feel for the characters and their story, but ultimately I didn’t care about any of them.

This was a debut novel, and you can tell in some aspects of the novel. The author Thakrar has a lot of potential and I’m fully convinced that she’ll improve with every book she’ll write. But Star Daughter just didn’t quite hit the mark for me. I wanted to like it more than I did and wish I had taken away from from the story. It’s a decent book but I just had my expectations set higher.

Did you read this book? Let me know in the comments what you think!

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