saskiami 's review for:

The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

2.0

slow-paced

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I was really excited for this book and feel let down. The idea is a feminist retelling of the Ramayana from Sita’s perspective, but it didn’t feel like one. Sita was a weak protagonist, her romance with Ram was not convincing to me, and the message felt all wrong and twisted. What bothered me most is there was little about female relationships in this story! The writing style was very tell, don’t show, which got boring. There was nothing novel or groundbreaking about it, rather, it just felt like I was re-reading the Ramayan with a different character narrating it. I appreciate what the author set out to do, I just personally didn’t resonate.

I found myself comparing it to Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel which actually does the women of the Ramayana justice and is a far better take on it, in my opinion. If you’re considering reading this I’d strongly recommend Kaikeyi instead.