Roshani Chokshi: “The Star-Touched Queen”
What’s this?
According to the stars, Maya is a cursed child. After the death of her mother, the harem women treat her accordingly until her father arranges a wedding for her - having peace for the country in mind, rather than his daughter’s own good. But things don’t turn out as expected and Maya becomes queen of a country she doesn’t know anything about. Much worse, her new husband is bound to keep his secrets.
What did you think?
"The Star-Touched Queen" follows the call for more diversity in books by presenting the reader a fantastic setting based on Indian mythology. Naginis, dragons and other creatures await the reader, together with a harem of the king's wives, horoscopes and the colourful and magical Night Bazaar. The latter is an awesome market filled with magical trinkets and spells, such as getting a good night's sleep in exchange for one's own name. I admired how the author created such an enchanting world in which everything seems possible.
Sadly, this setting is about the only thing that I enjoyed in this book. The plot is uneventful and mostly predictable, the characters are bland and lack any sort of chemistry or substance that made me care for them or believe their love and passion (for each other). Ironically, however, I found some side-characters to be much better developed. Take for instance Maya's father, the king of her country, who has his wise sides, gives sensible advice but ultimately acts in favour of his country and has his patriarch and military ways.
To top it off, the writing style often crossed the fine line between poetic and kitschy. Sure, some of the descriptions were very atmospheric, but they also came at the cost of cringe-worthy paragraphs and stereotypical expressions of love and admiration. Apart from a quite cool demon horse and the Night Bazaar, this book really didn't give me anything. So I'd recommend you to save your time for a more worthwhile book, rather than having to suffer through typical YA insta-love.
