Petra Collins: STAR

by Petra Collins

Fictional popstars and their fans — in tales of love and dangerous obsession — inspired by 2000’s icons. Collins created two fictional music groups exclusively for this publication. Collins pulls themes of identity and mental health through this compellingly realistic but narrative fiction.

This book is a cinematic journey of the performers as seen through the eyes of their fans and stalkers, images of performances, rescues, and confrontations, interspersed with letters, conversations, and diary entries. The five chapters follow Ashley, a solo star, and Siren8, a teen idol group designed for bubblegum appeal. Ashley, once a quiet artistic student, is discovered at a school performance and pushed into pop stardom. She starts sincere and gentle, but fame twists her identity. Manipulated, isolated, and disassociated, she becomes a ghostlike figure to those who knew her before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Siren8 contrasts with Ashley’s “dreamy-girl-next-door” image. They tour with Ashley before an unexplained falling-out. Vuyu, Ashley’s quiet, protective best friend, knew the real Ashley and reappears in anonymous forums to correct misinformation. Momo, a hardcore Ashley fan and obsessive researcher who created a viral timeline thread that’s a monument to Ashley’s erasure. B, a loner at Ashley’s school, fixates on Ashley as a symbol of truth. She writes dozens of letters, convinced she’s protecting Ashley, an obsession that slowly turns violent.

Genres: Art

176 pages, Hardcover

Published April 14, 2026

Reviews

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Petra Collins the girly pop that you are ❤️

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

should be a mandatory part of the curriculum

[katelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

ok perfect blue ok neon demon ok virgin suicides

i LOVE it. i need petra collins to please art direct every piece of media i see from here on out. thank you.

[Dollie Gore · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Virgin Suicides meets Perfect Blue meets Britney Spears. There's a cohesive narrative controlled by letters, typed introductions, and imagery following a storyline. Absolute candy-coated y2k perfection becomes slowly yet notably tinged with horror as we see the events unfolding. The images are nostalgic and dreamy as we follow a pop star who's gone missing.
Petra truly follows her own roots by reverting to techniques from her earlier career that have become refined by her own experience and it pays off beautifully. She's mastered a sort of softness and femininity that gets caressed by gore, forcing the viewer to confront whether girlhood is inherently linked to trauma. The photos in Star are hazy, with often softened, nearly foggy, lighting that brings into question the state of reality. It becomes evocative and dreamy. Motifs of wings, prey animals, and blood, married with beaches and childhood bedrooms and hospitals, spread across the pages with nothing but intent to provoke the horrors of many girls' childhood pop star dreams faced with reality.

[holden caulfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is ashley dead? Is she insane and admitted and imagining all this? Did she kill someone when she was admitted? Was she kidnapped by that man? Was Ashley in hospital in recovery after being kidnapped by that man? Did her friends find her and help her kill him? Were b and that man in kahoots? Is b how that man sees himself as a woman? Is ashley actually b? Is b a representation of Ashley's darkness and instability? Why is the handwriting on the page with the drawing of Ashley actually illegible? What does the deer represent? Innocence? Why does it say siren8 has 4 members when every depiction is only of 3 girls? What was the thing with siren8 being nurses to b at the hospital? Was b imagining them there? Why did b and that girl end up switching places as nurse and patient? Did they lobotomize Ashley at the hospital or give her plastic surgery? Did Ashley give up stardom so b could have it but for some reason no one notices the difference between the girls?

I think this would be really cool as a horror movie

[nana · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's raw, it's intimate. It's everything Idol tried to be and could not encapsulate. Petra is an artistic genius, each pages moved me, it was trully captivating, I also loved the honesty that bled throughout each page, it felt like I was sharing in the secrets. The colors, the angles, the page order it was all technically incredible while staying rooted in reallness, even if we were navigating between reality and imagination. It made me so nostalgic of the 2000s glam but also glad that it's over. Glamour has a lot of glitter for being so rotten. I 100% recommend. Obsseded.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

High concept and production value, interesting but missing a narrative hook/link-the writings were interesting and the photographs cool but didn’t connect in a felt sense for me. Liked the deer and a lot of the composition, happy for her it’s in the world after so long, I think it needed more connective tissue for a stranger who doesn’t know all the pieces.

[RYAN PHAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea who Petra Collins is or what girl band culture is. The art was super stylized and seems like it was painstakingly put together. Strangely, there is a story arc here. Not sure what the story arc is though

[guneet ☆ · Rating 4.25 out of 5]

the first art book i've ever personally picked up and it was everything i wanted it to be! collins made the vibe feel so lively yet eerie at the same time and i felt myself wishing i could've been there at the scene to see how the photos were taken!

[~farnia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heavily inspired by perfect blue i see

[May · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love LOVE LOVEEEEE this!!!!!! petra you are forever my inspiration

[Washingtonp0st]

It’s truly so sickening. Her mind🙇‍♀️

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

qué buen regalo de mis amigas jeje <3