Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar had potential. The author said she took inspiration from the movie Star Dust and Hinduism. The book had good representation and different cultural influences. The book is about 17 years old Sheetal, whose mother is a star who unexplainably left Earth when Sheetal was a child. Throughout the book, Sheetal learns about what being a star means for her, her father, and life on Earth. Great premise. Unfortunately, the book was boring, and it took about 150 pages to get a little interesting.

The beginning felt as if the reader started in the middle of another story. The reader should connect with Sheetal and her family and friends, but we are never introduced to any of these characters. Instead, the reader was thrown into a story where the character's relationships are fully developed but never explained to the reader and were supposed to figure it out as the story continued. Minal, Sheetal's best friend, knows all of Sheetal's secrets, but we never learn when she got any information. Towards the middle of the book, the reader learns Minal knows Sheetal's mom who left Earth when Sheetal was seven, and up until this point in the story, I wasn't aware that Minal and Sheetal had been friends for that long.

In the first 150 pages, only several parts of the book interesting, mainly Sheetal's journal entries when she is reminiscing about stories her mother told her about being a star when she was young. Throughout the book, Sheetal's family is not very likable, Dev is annoying, and her best friend is both around and absent. Overall I would give this book 3 stars, mainly for the creativity and representation. The plot just wasn't interesting enough for me to feel engaged with the story.