Title: The Star-Touched QueenAuthor: Roshani Chokshi
Series: The Star-Touched Queen
Volume: 1
Genre: Fantasy
Goodreads
A Quick Introduction: Cursed with a horoscope promising a marriage full of death and destruction, Maya is content to resign herself to life as a scholar. Thanks to her horoscope, she is blamed for anything that goes wrong. However, when her father decides to try and marry her off to quell outside rebellions, she finds herself married to Amar and queen of Akaran. But both Amar and Akarnan have secrets, and Maya begins to suspect that her life is in danger and must figure out the truth on her own.
Out of Ten: 6/10
Review at a Glance: A fantasy debut with a great concept that faltered a bit on execution.
Review: This was one of my most anticipated debut novels of the year, and overall I enjoyed it! While I didn't love it, it was still both an interesting concept and fairly well executed. The story pulled me in initially, but stumbled a bit as the story continued.
Maya's horoscope means that she is treated terribly by the women in her father's harem, where she lives and is blamed for every bad thing that happens- from small injuries to stillborn children. Maya basically navigates from difficult situation "people in the place I live routinely tell me to go die" to difficult situation "my father just told me he's planning to marry me off to a stranger" to difficult situation "I'm now the queen of a magical kingdom where nobody tells me anything about anything." For so much of the book it felt like things were happening to her, as opposed to her being an active participant in making them happen. Which was weird because she did do things, but there's something about the writing that feels kind passive.
I think that was one of the things that stopped me from all-out loving this one. It kept me from really being involved in the story. While I enjoyed reading about Maya's journey, I wasn't fully engaged in it. The romance between Maya and Amar felt kind of rushed as I read it. I also found all the secrets being kept from Maya frustrating. I know that, within the story, there was a magical reason, but from a storytelling perspective it felt a little contrived.
The plot itself was a great way to showcase a very interesting world- one that is both beautiful and imaginative. While this book did struggle in some places, I did overall enjoy the story, and I'm still looking forward to exploring this world more in the next book.
Eeep, I'm super nervous about this one! I was going to buy it but then I heard it was VERY fond of purple prose and I don't do so well with that. Plus the promise of insta-love also turns me off. :( And it's sad that Maya was mostly a passive character. Eh. But I'm glad you still mostly liked it despite some issues! I really am hoping my library buys it so I can just borrow instead of buy. ;D
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It's one that I was really glad my library had- I wasn't confident about buying it, but I'm still glad I got the chance to read it! The weirdest thing about Maya feeling passive is that she was DOING things... it just somehow felt like wasn't... really interacting much during some aspects of the story?
DeleteHopefully you get a chance to read it soon!
You know I wasn't originally going to try too hard to read this, but the more I've heard about it the more I want to. Plus the cover of the sequel is so gorgeous I need it haha
ReplyDeleteSo glad you enjoyed it!
The covers are just stunning! That was initially one of the things that drew me to this book- it's such an interesting combination of colours.
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