Reviews with content warning for Religious bigotry - The Bandit Queens

I loved the interactions between the women and the way the relationships were portrayed. No one was perfect, they were all flawed and interesting. The story was interesting, but less so than the setting and characters.

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sophsg88's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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

5.0

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barbarella85's review against another edition

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dark hopeful

4.25

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schnaucl's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad 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? It's complicated

4.5

This was a well told story about a woman whose husband left her but the village thinks she murdered him. Consequently she's been socially isolated. But then women trapped in their own abusive marriages come to her for advice on getting rid of their husbands.

The characters were compelling and the setting vivid.

Shroff does a good job of showing how abusers work, systematically isolating people from their support network.

And how easy it is to fall back into old patterns without realizing it. She also does a good job showing how things can be self reinforcing. Geeta is socially isolated by the villagers at first but reinforces it herself in later years. Patterns of all kinds are hard to break.

I could have done without the focus on a Solani's weight at the beginning and throughout though.

She also does a good job showing that when people want to play savior, the consequences of trying to change the system often fall on the very people they're trying to save.

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tashtasher's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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szraj16's review against another edition

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dark funny medium-paced

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was a really solid 4.5 for me! I absolutely loved it, it was dark, humorous, and really entertaining. The way the author was able to intertwine humor with really important (and horrible) societal problems and some really dark moments, while never making light of them, was really well done. I’ll also note that the vocabulary used in this book is 10/10 and I’m so thankful for the dictionary function on my kindle.

The only reason this was not a 5 for me was because I felt like I pieced together the many clues sprinkled in throughout a little more easily than I would’ve liked. It’s not that it was predictable, but maybe it’s just that a little too much was given away if you’re paying attention to the details, in a way that makes a couple moments later on a little less impactful and surprising.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. Stories about India will always peak my interest and I’m so happy I read this one. Highly recommend for a murder/thriller book that touches on some really deep topics, and yet somehow stays fun and lighthearted.

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