Book Review: ‘Daisies in the Wild’ by Stuti Agarwal

Book Title: Daisies in the Wild
Author: Stuti Agarwal
Publisher: HarperCollins
Number of Pages: 176
ISBN: 978-9365692372
Date Published: Jun. 20, 2025
Price: INR 209

Book Review

“Daisies in the Wild” by Stuti Agarwal is a tender yet unflinching exploration of adolescence, set against the turbulent backdrop of a rioting Darjeeling. The novel centers on three girls—Inayat, Pema, and Nidra—whose lives intersect within the cloistered world of St. Mary’s school, where the desire to belong wrestles with the ache of isolation. Stuti Agarwal’s prose captures the raw chaos of growing up: the quiet rebellions, the yearning for acceptance, and the friendships that both wound and heal. The author, herself from Darjeeling, suffuses the narrative with an intimate sense of place, where every glance and whispered secret reverberates against a world that feels both magical and menacing.

Through the eyes of her protagonists, the author deftly navigates the complexities of faith, love, and internal conflict, weaving together personal and political tensions as seamlessly as the daisies that punctuate the story’s landscape. The girls’ struggles are as much about navigating schoolyard politics as they are about confronting the larger uncertainties of a community in upheaval. Their friendship is a fragile lifeline, tested by miscommunication, envy, and the ever-present fear of being left behind. The narrative is punctuated by moments of aching vulnerability—like the memory of a grandmother’s painted daisies, or the sting of being forever outside the inner circle—that lend the story its emotional heft.

The book also refuses to offer the familiar sheen of coming-of-age tales. Stuti Agarwal leans into the messy, in-between spaces of adolescence, allowing her characters to falter and flare without judgment. There’s no heroism here—just honest, aching lives unfolding in real time. The girls speak with a raw immediacy, their words tinged with longing, dry humor, and the quiet terror of growing up. Rather than dramatizing their defiance, the novel finds strength in subtle resistance—in the way a gaze lingers, a silence holds, or a truth slips out uninvited. It’s in these understated ruptures that the story pulses with life.

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Ultimately, “Daisies in the Wild” is a testament to the resilience of friendship and the bittersweet process of finding one’s voice amid the noise of the world. It is a story of summers remembered and futures imagined, of holding on and letting go, and of the small, persistent hope that tomorrow might be kinder. Stuti Agarwal’s novel is a poignant reminder that growing up is never easy, but it is in the wild, uncharted spaces between friends that we often discover who we truly are.

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