Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - Kaikeyi

Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

11 reviews

kai_flynn's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

i love mythology-based stories and this was no different, except maybe even more enjoyable for that fact that the story and characters were so new to me! pacing was strange at times, especially towards the end, but overall it was wonderful and I loved reading it

Content Warnings

morganthecarrot's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous hopeful fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

sophiesometimesreads's review against another edition

4.0

emotional 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

I did not know the original story of the Ramayana going into this and my current knowledge (so far) only comes from what I learnt with this book, so I am rating this on face value and cannot give any opinion on how much justice this does the original myth. I am also not Hindu, so I cannot comment on the quality of this representation. I can see a bit of a mixed bag of opinions regarding the faithfulness to the original myth and it's depiction of Hinduism in the reviews, which the author seemed to have predicted in her Q&A and Author's Note at the back of the book, though noting the author herself is Hindu.

This is very much a character-driven story and follows the life of Kaikeyi from her childhood through to adulthood. I had moments where I was more connected to Kaikeyi and moments where I wasn't, but overall I enjoyed reading her story.

I wonder if maybe the pushing on the misogyny being Gods' word at the start of the start of the novel was a little heavy-handed and may not sit well some people, particularly those who practice the faith, and we could've had a bit more clarity on this not being the actual opinion of the gods than one line later on. However, as I said, I am not Hindu so cannot comment too deeply on this, it was just something I noted when reading.

Overall, I enjoyed this and I am motivated to read more into the story of Ramayana in the future to see how this compares and delve deeper into the world of Hindu mythology.

Content Warnings

coolfoolmoon's review against another edition

4.75

emotional hopeful inspiring slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

WHICH WAY DO I TURN WHEN THE ROAD'S BECOME SO TWISTED?

I read the Mahabharata for a college class and I'm amazed how much I remembered. Even though I read a translation, and I didn't read the Ramayana (yet?), Patel perfectly captures that voice of an epic in her storytelling. It's an equally exciting read and an epic in its own right. It's such an interesting concept / premise: religion + history + men (ancient and modern) and their belief that war and power and conquest is their divine right / destiny, but what about the women in their lives? What about the every day issues that need to be solved? And the idea that a woman's destiny is to suffer to make any significant change... The woman has no free will yet tries to carve her own destiny yet the gods are against her yet it's all apart of their plan yet yet yet! There's just so many layers! I gasped so many times! What a tale!

Rama fell down the cosmic Pewdiepipeline.

Tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.

Content Warnings

mekowaletti's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

As someone unfamiliar with the lore that this is based on, i loved this perspective! I found Kaikeyi to be a fascinating character, the magic system was thought out and pertinent to the story

The one thing I wanted to see from Kaikeyi was more retrospection between how she used her magic and Rama

but overall there was realistic character growth and I enjoyed all that I learned through the story.

Content Warnings

samburkhouse's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

some_random_person_hi's review against another edition

4.25

challenging emotional sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I love when people retell stories in ways that uproot it from the bigoted views from the time it was written. It was kind of slow but even without having previous contact with the Ramayana, the impending sense of doom compelled me to read on and by the last ~80 pages I couldn't put the book down.

Content Warnings