Review by lauraleafromthelibrary - The Shape of Family

emotional reflective medium-paced

2.0

2 ⭐️

Trigger warning for extensive self-harm in the form of cutting.
The ending was too cookie-cutter for me.
- Everything was neat and organized. That’s not life.
- I’m happy they are healed but it was too perfect of an ending.

June 2009; Prem drowns — he was 8 years old
- How did we feel about chapter 6 — Prem’s perspective after he dies?
- He blames the water.
- What do you think?

Karina begins cutting herself.
Keith + Karina go to therapy.
Keith cooks.
Jumping into the mourning period — it’s tough for everyone. Jaya’s Indian mother comes to visit.
Karina is doing very well in high school; the cutting continues.

Jaya is pushing religion — page 71: “Now, Karina felt anger rise uncontrollably within her. She stood up and carried her plate to the sink. ‘God didn’t have anything to do with it.’ — What? said her mother. ‘I said, God didn’t have anything to do with my report card. And I don’t want to go to the temple. I have a big history project to work on.’ It was the last thing Karina wanted to be associated with, that nonsense that swept her mother away from their family for hours at a time.”

They fill in the pool — covering up the death?
Jaya also builds the temple. Destroys Prem’s room.
Page 79: “In the end, Karina lost both her brother and her parents. They divorced the summer she turned sixteen, two years after Prem’s death.”

Page 86: “Sometimes, she felt like one of his employees to be managed, or an investment to be returned. Karina had a different goal: instead of a university with the best ranking, she wanted one that would give her the largest scholarship — something they could give her true independence from her parents.”
- Her parents are kinda a lot. 😳

Page 97 — sleazy Keith is talking about his condo and how he paid off the house mortgage; I can’t believe Jaya never sold it.

Jaya complains that Keith is obsessed with wealth and building his career but in the end, it’s his salary that pays off the mortgage. She could have sold and lived with less. I don’t like that she’s constantly giving the ‘holier than thou’ speech about religion (religion is so important to her) when she lives a pretty solid life. It’s judgemental of her; it feels slimy to me. You can’t criticize one way of life when your life is no better, in a different way. Religion is not going to pay the bills.

Page 128: Jaya — “In pursuit of simplicity over the past few years, Jaya had shed the things with power to hurt or distract her: her work, her husband, her friends. She could focus exclusively on connecting to the higher spiritual force guiding the universe when she sat in Prem’s ashram and find solace there.”
- Is Jaya entering a cult?

The Prem chapters are kinda annoying me. The first one was okay but not the rest.

Page 143: was Karina raped?
Karina gets a job at Natural Foods Market — meets Micah. Her grades and life are slipping.
January 2015 — Karina moves into the Sanctuary. Drops out of school.

Page 156: her name; conversation with Micah — “What does it mean, by the way? Karina. Not much to me, except being saddled with a name no one can spell.”
- Girl 😆 it’s not that strange.
Micah: page 169 — “We all have demons, Karina. Every one of us. We all have something that haunts us, that prevents us from reaching our true potential.”
- Is this foreshadowing or is he a nice guy? I’m unsure. 🧐
The Sanctuary — is this also a cult?? 🧐
Page 175 — is Keith going to jail??
Karina can’t concentrate during meditation — sounds like me during yoga; not for everyone.

Page 209: “I worry this is getting to be too much, Jaya. It’s one thing to have daily prayer in your life, as we’ve always done. It’s another to dedicate your whole life to it like this. It’s not balanced.”
- Truer words have never been spoken.
I obviously don’t like that Karina is lying to her parents about living at the sanctuary; it’s unsafe. Plus, it’s just wrong. Tell them the truth!!!!
She’s sleeping with Micah after that therapy session of sorts.
- He suggests a new name — Serotina. 👎🏻

Page 219: “She had mistakenly thought that if the people who knew and loved her best — Dad, Mom, Izzy (indeed, the same people who had known Prem best) — if they couldn’t help lessen her pain, then no one could, ever.”
- Bleak but true.

Using an environmental engineering degree to grow weed — so classic. What an accomplishment. 👎🏻
- Botany Lab gold medal.🥇
I’m all for the environment and environmentally friendly things but fasting on a weekly basis? Sometimes two days a week? 😳
- Is this necessary?? More cult vibes.

Content Warnings