Reviews

The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara

eveningreverie's review against another edition

reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.25

Really cool premise with lacking execution. Temporally-fragmented narrative seemed purposeless besides a couple of rather unnecessary twists. A sense of time that at times stretches indomitably long and at times condenses such vast swaths of time into a footnote. A lot of the time, I didn’t care for a few of the simultaneous stories. I get what they’re doing in the context of the narrative (I.e.

I get it, she has a clarinet, maybe these are a real-time representation of her dad’s tangential thoughts

), but more often than not it feels fundamentally disconnected from itself. There’s little here that couldn’t have been successfully (or more so) told chronologically. 

harureads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

A beautiful exploration of the human life, and our possible future with the climate (political and literal) we are currently living in. I did feel like the lives of King and Athena did mirror each other’s in this complex way because of how their situations and personalities drove them to take any of the steps they did.

Although, one thing I absolutely did not like was how the book describes anything pertaining to the actual people. Visceral explanations of the smell of their sweat and breath, it’s felt weird and out of place every time. And although the book aimed to show the evils of caste system and capitalism I felt like it ended up not doing either sufficiently and had it not been for the characters, the story would have been fairly bland.

fishky's review against another edition

4.0

I guess this book was like if Steve Jobs was an immigrant proxy for intergenerational family trauma and then Margaret Atwood starts ghostwriting chapters at random. Still cried at the end tho

krobart's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

ash13yh's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.75

roxyk's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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

headgirlhermy's review against another edition

2.0

“Absolutely Not”, a thought I had many times during this book. There were parts where I really wanted to enjoy the story and the commentary provided but in the end - absolutely not.

I didn’t have high hopes for this book after the trauma fest that was the first chapter but my book club picked a “science fiction” book and I was excited for a pick that is more inline with my personal taste in books. So I held in there thinking we just had to catch up to more modern times. This was more historical fiction and a comments on current events than anything I would classify as science fiction. I get where that classification is added in but in the scheme of the narrative feels like an after thought.

Not a huge fan of some of the descriptive writing. Like just get to the point or use more colloquial language. “Tingling armpits” to describe beings nervous? No thank you. “Wobbling” fried eggs? I never want to eat again.

hannahcmwright's review against another edition

mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

nicolal's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious sad 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? No

4.0

fredicia's review against another edition

challenging reflective fast-paced

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

3.25

There's plenty going on here to talk about, and the books is well written.

However, topics are rarely explored to the best of their ability, and it could have been an excellent in depth exploration of one major idea, which would have been better.