Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - The Bandit Queens

Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

106 reviews

jotee76's review against another edition

dark funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I liked that issues relating to the caste system were highlighted as well as honour based violence and treatment of women in India. However, I get a sense that the author was writing this with view to being made into a film, with elements of the narrative becoming farcical, bordering on slapstick, which was a bit distracting. Overall, I enjoyed it.

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maddelpop's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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dewo0019's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book was a rollercoaster. I really liked it at first, then wasn't fond of the Indian stereotypes and relationships between the women, but am glad I stuck with it because I ended up enjoying the character development and message of female friendships.

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mondovertigo's review against another edition

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dark funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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differentsisters's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

A book that deals with so many triggering topics should not be this funny. It’s been a really long time since a book has made me laugh out loud this many times.
This book deals with many things, domestic abuse, the caste system, the treatment of women being the main ones. But they are handled with a biting dark humour that can only thrust through the grittiness of the lives of women living in these villages and circumstances.
The plot of murdering husbands is quite absurd but the characters also know this, so they are also looking at the situation as ridiculous.
One of the main features of this book is the female relationships; the complexity, the envy, the loyalty, the ups and downs that come with life. They are not all perfect women, but they bite harder than any dog (wink wink). But it’s so good. They’re are so funny together.
Greta is a perfect protagonist for the Western reader to enter this world vastly different from our own. She has quite Western and liberal ideas, but she’s also a cranky grumpy middle-aged woman. She always has something to mutter and groan about. However as our plot goes on and she’s forced into action but never loses her quips.
(it really should be 5, maybe at another time)

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legs_n_chins's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I fluctuated a lot while reading in the first half, oscillating between deep appreciation for the commentary being made, and exhaustion with what I found to be a bit over the top situations. But I realized at some point that I just wasn’t taking it with the right mindset — having read a thriller most recently and some other more straightforward books before that — and once I let myself just enjoy the sort of soapy nature of the humor it was just a fantastic ride to the end. The author, I think, balanced the humor very well with the heavy subject matter, and it offered the right amount of levity in the right places in my opinion. The tone was consistent throughout and the author even made that seem easy. It dragged a bit in some places for me, taking it down a peg or two, and I know some of the characters were written to be rather dislikable but for me that just made them hard to read sometimes.

I thought the subject matter was handled very well. The author addresses intersectionality, female oppression, rape culture, and domestic violence and its associated trauma with definite care. Over the past several years I’ve grown extremely critical of media that uses the abuse of women as some sort of plot device to push the narrative along, but then just sort of forgotten a little later when it stopped being useful to the plot. I never felt like that was happening in this book. Any instance of abuse that was discussed or depicted did not just get set aside or ignored completely once the next action was set in motion. It lingered and it was present throughout the rest of the story and it mattered to the character development. It lended a lot of the necessary seriousness to these situations despite the humor that the author included throughout the book. And it was difficult to read in some places, yet not exploitative or voyeuristic.

I was very impressed with how the author wrote from the main character’s point of view, too. Geeta wasn’t the most pleasant protagonist, yet I was rooting for her the whole time. Even in moments when she was really unlikable, the sort of exasperation and irritation I felt didn’t last long. She had very obvious flaws, but I liked seeing which ones she worked out and which just sort of were part of her personality that she had to work around rather than just grow past. It was also very cool how Geeta was unreliable in certain aspects concerning her perception of self and her relationships, but the author made it clear she was reliable regarding the actual plot related events occurring throughout the story. It’s just really good characterization in my opinion.

And on a somewhat more background note, I really appreciated learning more about Indian culture through this book. Some of the Hindi beliefs and the depiction of the caste structure and general portrayal of day to day life in a village like this one, it was all woven in organically without feeling like an infodump that took me out of the narrative. I’m not always great with the classroom sort of learning, all strict informational teaching, but this not only educated me in a lot of things I didn’t know, it did it in a way that I’m more likely to actually remember some of it because it’s been presented in a more real world context. I just find that quite cool.

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