The Porn Star's Daughter

Oh wow! What a college life😆. There was a lot of fun, silliness and sadness. I'm happy with Tali's character development and I like the friendship in this story, it's weird but strong💪 and most of all I love this two lines😊
"Most people in the world spend most of their time judging you. And the only way to get over it is to embrace it. To seek out the haters, listen to what they have to say to you, and love it.”
“You use it to fuel your fire. You love it for making you stronger.”❤️

I thought the story was cute and entertaining. Tali is going through what most young adults do, the idea of figuring out who they are and how to deal with it. Personally I really enjoyed it!

I found this book SO HARD to get into. The only word I can think of to describe the first section of this book is pure CHAOS. It feels like so much was thrown in for shock value. I think overall, what I felt while reading this book was sadness.

I don’t think I’m at all a judgemental person; people who know me would agree to that statement. But it was hard to see these four young people drowning their trauma with drugs and alcohol almost constantly. They continued to make decisions that were not consistent with positive living. BUT, even as I say that, I wonder, “Who am I to judge what positive living is??”

So I do have to say, while I didn’t love this book, it has challenged me to truly examine my own beliefs about other people and their life choices. Growing up is all about making decisions, whether they’re “good” or “bad,” and learning from them to become better, more whole versions of ourselves. I do have to say that by the end of this book, all the main characters did learn and grow from their choices and experiences.

The one part of the story that I couldn’t get over, though, is when there was a conflict/relationship trouble in one of the couples, (trying to keep it spoiler-free!) one of the partners moved on immediately to another partner. It made me sad, even though it eventually turned out ok.

Bravo to Kay Stephens on her debut story! She appears to live her life boldly and unapologetically! The writing in this book really was good! Even if I didn’t love this particular story, it is obvious that she is a great writer!! I would definitely read her next book!!

We're all messed up in some way, aren't we? The sooner we learn to grasp our authenticity, we can find our tribe and live life to the fullest!

This was an interesting premise, which is what attracted me to the book in th first place. a different and unique take on the age-old story of separating from your parents. Finished it fairly quickly. Decent.

I liked this book well-enough, it was a unique set up, and for the right audiences, it should be a compelling, offbeat coming-of-age or "finding one's self" kinda story. A quick read and solid writing.

I read this book in a day and I never looked back! The twist and the plot were pretty easy to identify but the different POV's kept me intrigued to see how everything was going to unfold. A couple of the characters were so unlikable that it made it hard to feel bad or connect with them in any way. I do wish that the ending would've given a little more, I wanted to know how the characters dealt with the aftermath.


*I received a copy of this eARC via NetGalley*

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.


This one had a lot to unpack. At first glance, seeing the title and the cover led me to believe this would be a humorous read, and to some extent, it was. There were parts that were laugh out loud funny, but the core of this book dealt with many issues young adults deal with as they enter college and the adult world without their parents for the first time. The FMC, Tali, is the daughter of a famous porn star from, we can assume around the late 80s-early 90s, as it's stated that the internet wasn't a thing yet when her mother was filming. Tali has spent her entire life trying to hide who her mother is and where her family gets its wealth, as she's just wanted to be seen as a normal girl by her peers. She leave Los Angeles to attend college in New Orleans, figuring the distance will give her the space to reinvent herself, but it seems like too many people she meets along the way know her secret due to her resemblance to her mother being so strong. There is drug use, drug selling, alcohol use/abuse, prescription pain killer abuse, stripping/prostitution, a former Army Vet with some PTSD (who is a 22 year old freshman, and the closest thing to our MMC), and parental death, amidst the general struggles of college students. It's really more a story of struggle and acceptance, than humor and romance. Was it worth the read? Absolutely.

Kay Stephens is amazing and I love her style of writing. She’s definitely an author to look out for and read more from.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance reader copy for my honest review.
The characters were pretty... all over the place, I guess is an appropriate description. I can't completely judge the lack of believability though because I'm honestly kinda like Coventry, just a tad bit nicer & less insecure. But more growth with them would have made it 5 stars, especially since the characters hated another character but suddenly were best friends & just ditched another character. Most of the book is spent with the characters drunk & or high so it was super funny but unrelatable.

I thought it would be steamier, but the one or two scenes definitely met my expectations in the best way possible.

The Porn Star’s Daughter by Kay Stephens is a cute novel that explores Tali’s freshman life at a college in New Orleans; the one city her mother (a porn star) hates. She stumbles into a drunk at the airport who later turns into her boyfriend and makes friends whom she later calls family with the least expected characters.

This novel was more YA than I’d typically grab for but the title grabbed me; let’s not dissect what that says about me!

Anyways, overall verdict: 3.5/5 ⭐️ & 1/5 🌶️

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC.

The Porn Star’s Daughter is the first read that was provided to me directly through NetGalley. A full review that may contain some spoilers will also be posted on Goodreads.

This book did take me some time to get through, as it was slow-moving in the beginning, as far as setting up the plot and the story. However, once I was able to dive much deeper into the story, I was intrigued. Taglia, as a main character, was a mess, but a LOVEABLE mess. You cannot help but want to see her come out ahead, despite the complications in her life that stem from being the daughter of Missy Mariola, a well-known porn star.

Some of my favorite parts of the book are the times that are spent together, with Taglia, Coventry, Seth & James, in the dorm rooms. While my college experiences were definitely not like these, I can imagine that there are some people who have these types of experiences during their college careers, and hopefully, these are depicted well by the author.

The “found friends” that become family trope….one of my all-time favorites.

The embracing and normalization of sex-work in this book are also refreshing, as someone who is fully supportive of this industry, and would love to see more of this in different forms of media. KUDOS to Kay Stephens for embracing and championing this.

My only real critique of this book would be that the chapter breaks are not set up very well and it was often very difficult to figure out whose voice was being used, as it seemed to be a first-person POV, but jumped around a bit without expressing whose voice was being used. I had to use a lot of context clues around the chapter breaks to figure out who we were with at times.

This book was otherwise fun and will be a great addition to any contemporary fiction bookshelf once it is released!