The Star-Touched Queen
By Roshani Chokshi
Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen
of a kingdom when you’re only seventeen?
To be honest…I buy this book basically by its
cover and title. Really, no exaggerate. As soon as I saw the beautiful cover, I
was immediately dragged into and believe it’ll be a great story. Just look at
the queen the stars and the distant kingdom! Don’t they look amazing? How can
you resist it??? And the title…I can’t reject any title with stars and moon and
sun. They’re lovely, don’t you think? Even my own novel is about
stars…everything stars stars stars to me. Now, what are
you waiting for? Let’s reveal the beautiful veil of this book!
Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that
promises a marriage of death and destruction, she has earned only the scorn and
fear of her father’s kingdom. While Maya is content of her follow more
scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja,
arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon
Maya becomes the queen of Akaran ad wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected:
As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds
something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire…
But Akaran has its own secret—thousands of
locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of
fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet, who, besides her
husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms
hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans
reincarnated lived to save those she loves the most…including herself.
Really…? This is the first time I’ve read the
summery…it’s boring!!! The summery is
boring!!!!
How come it narrates a wonderful story by such a flat tone? It’s a great book
with great plot with great characters!!!!! Ahhh!!! Oh wait! And it’s an Indian
story! “A lush and vivid story that is steeped in Indian folklore and
mythology.” A part of the summery, actually. And I can tell you…I’ve no
idea it’s a Indian story until I saw sari…it’s excellent! I’ve expected nothing
until I finish the book. It’s kind of funning, actually, it might be my first
time to do this. And absolutely crazy, for a person who is lack of time and
money…it’s a great risk to do so. So…will I recommend you to do this kind of
act…? Of course…NOT!!! Unless you’ve nothing to spend expect books! Before I’ve
started this book, I was kind of worry. Like…I had never read the summery, let alone
knowing what it’s about…the only thing I know is about a queen re-claiming her
throne. That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less. But then, I saw some of the
reviews…oh…hold on, I didn’t read the reviews, just the ranking. And some say
they can’t even bare to finish this book! How horrible must it be? But at the
same time, lots of people praising this book as “wonderful” “excellent” “dazzling”
or something like that. however…I guess books get both negative and positive
reviews all the time…so…you can read the review…but whether the book is good or
bad, that’s all to yourselves.
So then I pick up this book and read it…no,
devoured it. Within one mere day. (How I love the life without exams and free
24 hours to use by my own!!! No more stress!!! Yeah!!! Three cheers for
college-to-be!!!) Is it good? Yes. Extraordinary? Well…that depends. Horrible? Nothing
to do with that world. This is my first time to read something an Indian
folktale based story. To me…Indian stories are mostly about religious story and
lots of lots of god. But then, The Star-Touched Queen blinds all those suspicious,
tales, legends together well. So while I was reading…I don’t really travel to
an Indian world, but something in between. It’s a mix of both western YA novels…but
also with the traditional form of India. That’s great, I think. But…if you
think re-claiming throne is about epic or something like The Queen of Tearling…you’ll
be disappointed. It’s not an epic, nor does it have a lot of fighting scene. No
brutal massacre, no bloody death lying on the floor. (Umm…well...there are a
lot of death…but none of it can compare to those epic.) And nope, although “re-claiming
throne,” nothing similar to The Queen of Tearling…on the
contrary…it somehow reminds me East of the Sun, West of the Moon. You
know…all the finding scenes and saving and blablabla. It’s not a journey about
fighting for her kingdom, but a journey of finding herself, finding who she truly
is, and finding her power. Really, the fighting scene appears only about one
minute…and then nothing…all gone into peace.
“I’m a dead girl walking.”
Maya has thousands of identity, and there are
lives before her recent life. After betraying, she must set everything right,
but not without a cost. Unlike the protagonists nowadays…she isn’t that strong.
Not exactly. She is hunted, scared, and untrusting. But then, it’s fun to read
something different from badass characters. My only problem with her is that
how can you trust someone without knowing her??? And since you don’t trust Amar…how
can you trust someone or something inside his house? (Don’t worry, this isn’t a
spoiler…Maya never trust him. Not until the last. And it’s no secret at all.) You
know…some characters distrust the characters they live with…and when someone
else appears…they just sweep their trust almost immediately?
Or
I’m just too calculating? That doesn’t sound like a good thing…distrust. But
after surviving your school lives…you’ll understand how horrible human being
might be. (Don’t worry, I believe there’re still goodness inside human. But at
least for those who are not worthy…that might be…) I love the journey with
Maya. It’s not extremely exciting or thrilling, but it all comes gradually. How
she flee herself from disaster, how she try to figure out everything while
everything seems to be hidden from her. And how she learns to let go of the
past and turns back every mistake has made.
The first part of book is actually not as
good as the second part…it’s something that we’ve read before.
Something
we might inspect from other books. See? The fleeing princess, the rescuer, the
sacrifices…and of course, the misleading. But then, the truly interesting part
is in the second part, where Maya starts another journey, and she meets
interesting company. A horse. A talking horse. I’m not going to talk about her…but
really, she is one of the highlight in this book. Then her journey, yes , HER JOURNEY!!! While it is supposed to
find her love one…but it’s not. Well…correct the mistake…it’s about him, but
not all of the journey is. Maya also faces other things she needs to learn and
help. So when it comes to the part she finds her jaani…everything goes extremely fast. That’s one of the good things
about the second part, it’s really fast pace. Really fast. And how the villain crumples?
…within seconds.
So, we might feel like reading the same plot
from other books while reading The Star-Touched Queen. However, the
foreign worlds and well create realms makes it different. So when you’re whining
about the “not-so-creative” plots, the set of the story make a mend of that. And
the description is especially beautiful. I’ll recommend this book if you’re
fond of foreign culture and set. Although it’s not entirely India…you can still
catch a glimpse of those cultures we’ve learned before. And highly recommend
for those stars lovers. Definitely need this.
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