Review of The Goddess of The River

I am woefully uneducated in the ways of the Hindu religion. In the Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel, we learn about Ganga, the Hindu river goddess, and dive headlong into epic tale complexities that have been soaking into Indian culture for centuries.

Inspired by the Mahābhārata - which incredibly consists of roughly 1.8 million words to make it about ten times the length of the Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey combined! - we learn how Ganga is transformed from a powerful river into a mortal woman, and more importantly, a mother.

It took me a bit of time to understand how all the characters (there were a lot!) were connected with one another, despite having a family tree at the front of the book. But I quickly discovered that this tale contains deeply flawed characters prone to making decisions with far-reaching consequences. This tale is unflinchingly gritty, and actions that seem clearly black and white often show their grey roots.

The pacing ebbs and flows as we change POVs which is a bit challenging to follow, but ultimately, I enjoyed being submerged into this story about motherhood, mistakes, and myth.

This comes with some intense trigger and content warnings so please review those or send me a message for more info.