I loved this so much! I loved reading and learning more about each of these Goddesses and the lessons and wisdom they offer. I enjoyed learning how they can help you feel empowered in every day life with the practices featured in the book. It's so nice to see a spotlight on Hindu Goddesses in the magical community.

This was an absolutely beautiful book! I would recommend it to every single woman! It is all about harnessing the divine feminine and everyone needs to be able to roar like a goddess. The archetypes discussed were relatable and inspiring. Just a very empowering and uplifting book!

Thank you to the author, Sounds True, and NetGalley for an ARC - however, I ended up buying the audio version with my own money and listening to it from the beginning. And I am so glad I did. While the information is the same, listening to Acharya Shunya was like sitting at the feet of a warm, wise teacher. Everything felt more immersive and personal. I particularly recommend listing to the audio to hear the music and chanting.

The book is a combination of stories - mythological and personal, followed by teachings from those stories. The insights are filtered through the teachings of gurus through the ages and yet are immediately applicable today. Acharya Shunya both respects her lineage and is not afraid to reinterpret texts when needed. There is both a reverence for the past and a fearlessness to blaze her own trail in her teachings. Listening to her tell the stories she grew up hearing from her elders feels like a sacred privilege. And her vulnerability in sharing her own stories made listening to the book an honor.

It can be difficult to set aside our own cultural or religious context to hear what is actually being said. It is entirely too easy to interpret teachings through the lens of what we are used to. For example, I was challenged to rethink my attitude towards prosperity. Having a strong aversion to the "prosperity gospel" in Christianity, I had an immediate, visceral reaction to the term. I had to set aside what I thought was being said and listen to what the author was actually teaching. This stretched me in new and challenging ways. I appreciate the experience while acknowledging it left me sore.

While I am giving Roar Like a Goddess five stars, I feel like I only scratched the surface of what it has to offer and believe my appreciation of the book will only deepen over time, through repeated readings.

Shared to public goodreads, private instagram & facebook, and the Sounds True FB book club.

Roar Like A Goddess by Acharya Shunya

275 Pages
Publisher: Sounds True
Release Date: September 6, 2022

Nonfiction, Religion, Spirituality, Goddess, Empowerment

The book addresses aspects of three Goddesses – Durga to vanquish oppression and take back your feminine power, Lakshmi to be content and find soul abundance, and Sarawati with gifts of wisdom, peace, and inner freedom. It is divided into the following.

Part I: Durga
The Search for the Hidden Goddess
Roar Like a Goddess When Accosted Sexually
The Goddess Path To Unconditional Self Respect
Establish Boundaries to Live Royally Like Durga
Defy Stereotypes to Live Like a Goddess

Part II: Lakshmi
Goddess Lakshmi and Her Beautiful Symbolism
The Greatest Wealth Comes From Valuing Yourself
The Four Goals of Life and Goddess Lakshmi
The Value of Discontentment in a Goddess’s Life
Lakshmi Shows the Path to Generosity

Part III: Saraswati
Saraswati’s Mythology and Awakening Insights
The Goddess Path of Discernment and Sovereignty
Saraswati Says Wake Up and Face Your Trauma
Goddesses Don’t Harbor Irrational Feminine Guilt

Roar Alongside Your Goddess Tribe

This book is an excellent resource to help women get in touch with their feminine power. In today’s time, patriarchy drives down women’s power. The author writes in an easy to read and understand style. Each chapter has areas of contemplation. If you are looking for a way to tap into your inner wisdom and power, you will enjoy this book.

The book I have been waiting for. With all kind of Goddesses and archetypes this is the one I was missing the most. The Hindu Goddesses now finally portrayed from a feminine perspective teaching. The way Acharya introduces and re-introduces these deities makes you read the book in one time as it speaks to you, it mirrors you, it moves you: your inner Shakti.

ROAR LIKE A GODDESS by Acharya Shunya is remarkable. Intelligent and engaging, this book is empowering and encouraging, like few books I have ever read. Beautifully written and illustrated, Shunya utilizes stories with astute grace, thus informing, educating, and motivating me to look at our world, societies, and individuals with a fresh perspective. Ultimately, adopting her practices and using them in our real lives frees every one of us from damaging, demeaning, and limiting roles. I imagine that we will thus go on to create, live, and enjoy lives with greater fullness, flexibility, and pleasure. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

Acharya Shunya begins this book by providing some background information on the goddess, Shakti; however, she does not overlook mentioning the fact that there are hundreds of goddess expressions of Shakti, including the Goddesses Ambika, Parvati , Kali, Sita, Radha, and Usha. But in this book, her focus is primarily on: Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati, whom she states are often considered the holy trinity of Supreme Goddesses.

Acharya discusses the fact that Durga deals withself-respect and setting self-boundaries, while Lakshmi represents beauty and prosperity. She states that Durga who is Lakshmi, becomes Goddess Saraswati. The literal meaning of Saraswati is “the essence of the self”. While Durga represents the raw power of Self and Lakshmi represents fullness of Self, the Saraswati archetype represents sacred wisdom, which is the knowledge and the realization of the goddess within each of us.

Acharya discusses Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati in great detail providing their divine animal, powers, traits and characteristics and how we possess these traits within us.

This book is well suited for anyone interested in the relationships between the divine female, women's spirituality, and female potential and empowerment, focusing on peace, healing, spiritual liberation, and realizing one's own inherent divinity.

In-depth exploration of three Hindu goddess archetypes from a feminist perspective. Author uses her expertise as a scholar of Hindu scriptures to decide the symbolism behind each goddess and offer to implement it in your life in order to embrace new goddess attitudes and a lifestyle of abundance and wisdom. Acharyna uses her storytelling abilities to make these ancient legends come alive.

The Divine Feminine resides within, and this book will help us find what we have been lacking, what we didnt know was there, or what has just been buried under patriarchal conditioning. Our Goddess connections will be better understood and strengthened by this wonderful book, which is full of wisdom and flame.

In Roar Like a Goddess, Acharya Shunya teaches the vedic tradition of the feminine divine as personified by the goddesses Shakti, Durga (and her aspects Parvati and Kali), Lakshmi (and her aspects Rati, Draupadi, and Santoshi Lakshmi), and Saraswati, whose name breaks down into Sanskrit SARA = ESSENCE and SWA = SELF. The life journey of women and nonbinary people can be seen as a continuum from Durga to Lakshmi to Saraswati (physical security, material success, spiritual enlightenment).

Shunya is highly critical of modern patriarchal Hinduism, and offers an empowering feminist alternative.

I admit I was hoping for more study of the vedas and less of a tour of inspirational women through history as embodiments of goddess-power, especially when those women may never have even heard of the deities in question. But that's my own pleasure in academic study speaking. Instead, I found myself holding a book asking female and nonbinary identifying humans to challenge their assumptions about their own limitations and dreams, and about how they are pursuing the four goals of the vedic way of life. These are material success, pleasure, pursuit of dharma, and mokhsha (freedom from spiritual ignorance).

Hinduism and the Vedas have no real concept of sin or going to hell like Christianity does. The original Vedas were incredibly sex-positive for women and men, as long as no one got hurt. The real point is that your actions come back to you, as in, you reap what you sow, therefore people should act justly and do good in the world because it makes it a better place. It's very simple, at least until prejudice (race, class/caste, ,gender, etc.) get involved.

I'm really glad I read this, even though/especially because it challenged me to rethink the areas of my life where I'm strong vs weak. I spent years of meditation training focused at the Saraswati end of the feminine divine continuum; I have spent comparatively little time working through Durga and Lakshmi areas of self-development, but I've never read (and there's a lot that I've never read) anything laying out this spectrum so clearly.

Thank you, Sounds True, for the advance reading copy.

This book can be read and used by anyone in times of difficulty especially when you need to take some brave steps and tired of everything that is going on around you.
However, I would say this book can get more enjoyable for those like me who's been already familiar with the names and the idea of the goddesses mentioned. I really appreciate this concept and made me see the goddesses we have been worshipping for ages in a new light.

It's explained well on how to apply the basic ideas in which situations we might need them the most.

The writing has the voice it intends to have. It's easy and accessible.

Moreover, you will gain more new and better information about the goddesses mentioned and what aspects of life/universe they represent.

A definite must read.