Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - The Bandit Queens

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The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

214 reviews

legs_n_chins's review against another edition

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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thetearex's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

Content Warnings

rainieschulte's review against another edition

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challenging funny medium-paced

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

3.0

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banana_hutch's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful tense fast-paced

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

4.25

This book was such a thrill-ride. Once the action started, it did NOT stop. At no point was I ready for the thing that happened next. This book does such a wonderful job portraying the lives of these women and the rules they're bound by, mixing humor with devastation and cruelty. I loved this one!

Content Warnings

queerandtalkative'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? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

unlikelyplaces's review against another edition

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4.0

Bandit Queens - Parini Shroff

⭐️ - 4

🎧

Bandit Queens is a dark, literary comedy set in a small village in India. It follows Geeta, who is quite happy to let the rest of the town believe the rumours that she murdered her husband because she just wants to be left alone. But things get more complicated when another woman in the village asks her for help with murdering her own husband.

Although a “comedy”, this novel has so much depth to it. It deals a lot with themes of domestic abuse, the trauma that women suffer at the hands of men, and the importance of sisterhood.

My main criticism of this was that it took a while for me to get into, it was quite a slow start and I didn’t really feel invested until about half way through, but once it picked up I was hooked.

But other than that I loved this. It would be a great one for a book club or a buddy read, I feel like there’s so much to discuss about this story and I would recommend to pretty much everyone (please look at the trigger warnings though).

❗️Content Warnings (SPOILERS): on page s3xual assault, domestic abuse (this is a major theme), vomit, animal cruelty, alcoholism, infertility

Content Warnings