Book Review: Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

Holy wow. Star Daughter has been one of my most anticipated books for 2020 and I was desperate to get my hands on a copy. So when I saw it was available to request in the Harper360 Blogger Newsletter? I obviously requested it, but didn’t have much hope that I’d be lucky enough to get a copy. And then I was and I was so damn excited.

Now I’ve read it I’m still so damn excited about this book.

This book follows Sheetal, a half-human and half-star girl who was raised in New Jersey by her human dad without much clue as to how being a half-star affects her. One day her father gets burned by starlight and the only way for her to heal him would be to get the blood of a star. This sends her on a journey into the celestial court to find her mum and there she winds up entering a tournament for the sake of her family and to earn the blood for her dad.

I loved everything about this book.

Seriously.

When I picked it up I for some reason had the idea that this was pure second-world fantasy. I’m not sure why this was but I did. So when I opened it up and found out that it was partially set in our world, I was pleasantly surprised. Sheetal is a mixture of both our world and the world of the Hindu celestial courts and Shveta Thakrar did this so, so well. There was this beautiful dance of our mortal realms with both Sheetal and her human friends with the magic of the stars. The world building was so strong and I’m fascinated to look more into Hindu legends now!

Sheetal was a wonderful main character. She didn’t have it easy to start with and I loved seeing her little journal entries. I teared up a few times and as she was trying to tough it out and explore her heritage I was just rooting for her so hard. And then there was her best friend Minal. I loved her so much, she was such a supportive best friend. It was nice to see that Sheetal never really kept her heritage a secret from her and that she called her in to help her with these things. The fact that Minal was gay was just a much added bonus and her flirtation with Padmini was just so cute. The main romance with Sheetal and Dev was also fun even if it was a little heart-wrenching at times!

The one thing I’m sad about is that this is a standalone. Seriously. What was that ending? There were some loose ends that were clearly there on purpose. Because the story is very much wrapped up so this isn’t a complaint saying it wasn’t ended right. But there were some areas that could clearly be expanded on. I’d love to see Sheetal and Dev’s future and to see if maybe she does figure out those things she wants to and if he manages to sort things out on his end. Ooooh, this is hard to talk about without spoiling things! But if you’ve read it then you know! I’m sure you feel my pain!

I completely adored this book and honestly, I recommend it to anyone looking for a new fantasy read as this one is so well worth it!