Another book with a brilliant premise that didn't quite deliver for me. The writing was beautiful in parts, but at some points it verged on purple prose. It must seem like I am anti-romance but I seriously am not, yet here I go again saying "romance had no place in this story". There were already enough interesting elements so the romance honestly felt unnecessary. I think this might just be another case of 'it wasn't for me'. ( )

Interesting story.

It is about the struggle of a half-star teenage girl to save her dad and consequently tries to find her place in both the star and the earth world. But most importantly it is about winning a talent competition.

Personally, I found the story original since it's the first time I'm reading about Hindu mythology (I've never watched Bollywood and heard only briefly names of Hindu mythological gods.) However, at the end of the book, I felt like the story was just beginning because most questions have not yet been answered.

One cannot deny how vividly and poetically Shveta is describing her characters and the story elements, if one is able at first to understand most of Hindu names and terms without searching it in Google. I suggest this book needs a dictionary, or short explanations in the bottom of the page so that the impatient reader will not be bored of it.

This one being the first English book I've read and completed in a long long time, if ever (my mother language is Greek), I found it a little difficult at first to continue the book. As I picked up the page and the story bloomed though, it felt easier to binge the last half of the book in less than a day.

To sum up, I feel like this book needs a sequel to clear things up and perhaps entangle them even more, so one may find joy in disentangling them all over again.

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD
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I loved Charumati's boldness in the end, for she had the courage to stand up to her own mother whom she fretted for years, so that she could restore what she believed had broken. At some point I thought our 17-year-old protagonist wouldn't make choices of her own, but she proved me wrong with her decision to ascend to a full-star before she competed. Truthfully, and maybe egoistically, I wanted a lot more things to happen at the last scenes. I felt like the author was zooming more into Sheetal's turbulent feelings and into finding every word in the dictionary that could describe colors than it was necessary. I needed to know more of the stars abilities and what happens when they become black holes, what do they feel then (if they feel at all) and I wanted to know more about values I cannot grasp at once (the culture and traditions of stars, the point of view of Nani that holds some truths, how will the balance between Humans and Stars be achieved) and less about things I can pretty much already predict (the love story we got at the end, which was expected, but not satisfactory enough to content my thirst of knowing the answer to greater, more important questions concerning the plot).

If there exists a sequel, I can justify the lack of answers. In the hope of that, I'll give it a four-stars instead of three. I do not enjoy unfinished stand-alones.








I gotta say, I love Amrita and Vanita.




I also loved this scene.



And right here is the moral of the whole book.


( )

"She wore the sky, had it wrapped around her like shadow-stained silk. She danced with it, within it, spinning softly, so softly, a sway here, a slow turn there."

A beautifully spun fantasy dripping with glitter about a girl torn between her silvery star blood and her mortal family.

It's becoming harder and harder for Sheetal to hide the fact that she's half-star. Her hair refuses to stay dyed black, her inner fire is surging, and she's finding it harder and harder to ignore the starsong. Even her boyfriend, Dev, seems to suspect something. But when she injures someone she loves in a tragic accident, her aunt finally gives her the letter left by the star mother who abandoned her, giving instructions to rejoin her. Along with her best friend Minal, she travels to the stars in search of starblood to heal her loved one. But she soon finds that her family in the stars has their own agenda they're expecting her to follow. Half-mortal, half-star, Sheetal must fight to find a place to call her own.

The strongest relationship in the book is that of Sheetal and Minal, who always has her back and will follow her anywhere. The love between Sheetal and her dad shines throughout the book, while Sheetal's pain at the absence and reappearance of her mother, Charumati, in her life seeps through the pages. Sheetal finds herself embroiled in both romance and intrigue, making for a great read.

The author uses this book's gorgeous setting among the stars to full advantage, building a shimmering fantasy world brimming with lights and secrets. From the second the girls set foot in the magical market hidden in our world to their moments in court, the otherworldly surroundings enchant. I loved the author's description of starsong as a beautiful melody that each star contributes to, where if you listen closely, you can separate out the individual threads. This is one I will read again and again to savor the beauty of the words. ( )

I had quite a bit of fun seeing stories from Hindu mythology and so many of the names that are very familiar to me represented in this way in a YA fantasy debut. But it also made me feel old when compared to the protagonist, so I think younger readers will appreciate this one more than me. Still a fun read and I can only hope for more amazing things in the future from this author. ( )

I read this as part of my Norton Award finalist packet.

This is a fun YA read that draws from Indian culture and mythology to bring a new spin to the familiar teen-forced-into-competition trope. The book follows Sheetal, a teen planning to take the PSAT while trying to hide her heritage as a star. Her celestial mother abandoned the family years before, leaving Sheetal with her dad--who she loves dearly, even as they clash as teenagers and parents do. With her 17th birthday days away, though, her usual black dye won't stay in her hair, she finds out her boyfriend knew she was a star and was literally using her as a muse (she is not happy), and then in a flare of anger, her star powers surge and she almost kills her dad. Now she needs to ascend to the sky to find out how to cure him before it's too late.

The cultural and mythological aspects of the book were fantastic. The first chapters hooked me right away with the desi family drama, and the drama among her mother's family brings in higher stakes for sure. The whole trope of a teen-forced-into-competition is wearing thin for me, though. I also was frustrated by how many plot points dragged on simply because people couldn't TALK. Yeah, people really do that, but it wears thin in reality, too. Still, it's a fun read and I can definitely see why it made the Norton ballot. ( )