A review by wackomac007
The Daughters of Madurai by Rajasree Variyar

5.0

As a Non Residential Indian (NRI) from Tamil Nadu, seeing a familiar city name (Madurai) drew my attention right away (that and the GORGEOUS ✨ cover). As a cis-man who also was born in the late 90’s I won the genetic lottery and was a boy(though my mother like Janani wished for a girl). Reading a story about female infanticide set in the same time period was an awakening. The author captures the grace, beauty and strength of Tamilian women beautifully. Reading this story was a throwback to the sights and smells of Tamil Nadu which I had no trouble getting back into. The plot of the story is hard hitting and reads like a Tamil movie. It doesn’t hold back and leaves the truth for the reader to bear (several times I put the book down because I needed a breath before I continued forward). The book has opened up a plethora of questions that I want to ask my parents who were newly weds in the 90’s about how they would’ve handled the situation if I wasn’t a boy. All that being said, the book is a solid read and very educational about the difficulty of having a girl child in Madurai and the struggle they face as they blossom into beautiful jasmine flowers.