Title: Kaikeyi

Author: Vaishnavi Patel

Hey hey, it’s MJ.

            Well, here we are with the fourth installment of this series for the year. I love a good retelling, I read a few last year because of Book of the Month and I enjoyed them. This one for me was good, not my favorite, but good. 

            I don’t know the myth; I am ignorant to it, which is my own shortcoming, not a shortcoming of the book itself. I am rating this one 3.5/5 which is not a bad score in my book. 

            I got through this book rather quickly and it was well written, it kept me engaged but there were parts where I was either confused or disinterested because of my own personal failings. It was a good book; it was interesting and it does make me want to learn more. 

            We are not as exposed to cultures unlike our own when we are growing up. We should be, because I think knowing the original myth before I started this book, or at least giving myself the context would have made it much more interesting to me.

            It kept me engaged from about page 15 or so and it was not hard to read, the pronunciations are in the front of the book which was super-duper helpful! I always love magic and the weaving of it into the lives of the characters. Kaikeyi is an interesting and dynamic character, cursed by the Gods, or Gods-touched it seems so the sway of the gods doesn’t affect her. 

            You see her build these connections knowing that she has a destiny that will rip her and all those relationships apart. 

            I loved the dynamics of the familial relationships throughout because that was a big part of it and how easily breakable a relationship is. 

            The ending was sad and it kind of left me just wondering about things because I know that that’s probably where the original myth and legend starts off, so maybe reading it now will make me have a different perspective about the character of Kaikeyi in the original myth. 

            Remember these are all my opinions and not every book is for everybody and that is totally fine. Because I know that a lot of my favorite books are not well liked by some. We are allowed to dislike things, art and literature are subjective. This might be someone else’s book of the year, it was good, but it was not 100% for me. 

            I think that people forget that we all are allowed opinions on the internet, we all don’t have to like everything all the time and that’s totally cool.

            This book didn’t do it for me like others do and that is the beauty of choice and opinion, we don’t have to like everything that we read, view, or listen to. Art is subjective, it has been and always will be. So, while I enjoyed this, it was not one of my top ten so far this year. 

            If you want to see what else I have read this year, you totally can, just click on the month, January, February, and March. 

            I will be back later in the week with another post so, until then I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy.

            -MJ