The Star-Touched Queen

1.5 Stars

Book 8 complete for O.W.L.'s 2019 Astronomy- Star in the Title

This is going to be a challenging review to write because I do not even know where to begin and how to effectively articulate my thoughts on this book. I'm going to try to do my standard pros/cons, but there is just so much with this book
Pros:
- Writing. Chokshi's writing is amazing. She has this lyrical style and that is gorgeous and descriptive and I immediately enjoyed reading her story.

Cons:
- Story. I was confused for probably 90% of this book. I read another review of this book that had a similar thought. I just did not understand what was happening and what the characters were doing. There were even times when I did not know who the characters were. For whatever reason, the explanation portion of the story was lacking. It may have to do with Chokshi's style of writing, but I just could not follow it. It has now been a few days since I finished the book and I honestly could not tell you what happened for the majority of this book. I can tell you small bits but nothing beyond that.
- Themes. At the beginning of the book, Amar comes in and is the “savior” and it really irked me that we did not have a strong female character who was saving herself. Yes, she had the choice to go with him or not but I still felt that it was framed in a way that he was this amazingly attractive savior.

I have many more thoughts but I'm not sure how to explain them. I do know that I will not be picking up a Crown of Wishes. I have no desire to read anything else in this world or with these characters. However, I do think part of my “issues” with this book could be due to it being a debut and I strongly believe Chokshi will get better with each book she writes. So I will be picking up the Gilded Wolves. I had high hopes for it prior to reading this book and while my expectations have been lowered, I am still looking forward to it, especially if it has the great writing of this book.