Sixteen-year-old Aru Shah is living anything but a fairy tale. Since her mother's death left her in the care of her indifferent stepfather Vikram Nath, Aru spends her days leading museum tours in a name-tagged vest, waiting on donors she'll never be, and sharing an attic with the ghost of everything that used to be hers.. all while dreaming of the one thing that might finally set her free: Princeton University. She finds romance with an anonymous online pen pal, but faces a crisis when she discovers he is Aiden Acharya: the school's star quarterback, most popular boy on campus, and heir to Atlanta's biggest law firm. The last person she ever expected, and the one person she can't afford to want. Now Aru must find the courage to stop hiding, stand up for everything she's always dreamed of, and finally step out of the attic she's been living in her whole life.

Arundhati Shah's life is perfectly ordinary, until a mysterious letter sealed with impossible wax arrives on a Tuesday morning. The letter that tells her she's been accepted to Devas Academy of Divine Arts and Celestial Warfare. The letter that reveals the magical world her exiled mother has kept hidden for fourteen years. Aru's mother, Krithika Shah, was once part of magical society, until she fell in love with the wrong man, got pregnant, and was stripped of her powers in front of the entire Magical Council. Exiled. Bound. Used as a cautionary tale whispered to young girls: Don't end up like Krithika Shah. Now Aru must enter the world that destroyed her mother, knowing nothing about her dead father except his name: Suyodhana. Knowing she'll be judged instantly for her mother's "shame." Knowing that magical society is obsessed with bloodlines, hierarchy, and keeping the "pure" families in power. At Devas Academy, everything depends on your heritage. The Cosmic Mirror sorts students into houses based on their bloodline: Chandra for the pure-blooded elite, Agni for demon-descended warriors, Vayu for celestial servants, and Surya for everyone else-the orphans, the unknown, the undesirable. Everyone assumes Aru will end up in Surya, if she's allowed to attend at all. But Aru has six weeks to prepare. Six weeks to learn everything about a society designed to reject her. Six weeks to memorize the names of powerful families, the complex web of alliances, and the devastating truth about what happened to the Vajra bloodline, the legendary family that went mysteriously extinct a hundred years ago, leaving their perfect matches, the Acharyas, mourning the loss of their greatest allies. RANKINGS: #1 aru shah #1 aiden acharya #1 brynne rao #2 mini #1 potatoes # kara shah