This book was not as good as the debut book of the author. I couldn't actually finish the whole book due to its slow pace and uninteresting storyline

I loved KAIKEYI, but I also don't know enough about South Asian myth to know any better. That and this seem to be contentious amongst own voices reviewers. A bit Hinduphobic and transphobic. Fun. The premise was very intriguing. The execution was so poor and dull. I did not like this retelling of the Mahabharata.

Goddess of the River is a very character driven story. You follow Ganga join the mortal world as a river and then be cursed to become a mortal woman. And more painfully when she must return to the river and watch her son live out his mortal life with all the strife and heartache a mortal life comes with. This is NOT a lighthearted book and you should take heed of the content warnings. While we see shining examples of people displaying the best humanity to offer, the majority of the book focuses on the worst of humanity. How even when striving to do the "right" thing we can cause significant harm. This is very different from other books I tend to read but I enjoyed it! The author clearly has done her research and it shows in her attention to detail. I thought this was a very thought provoking read. It was difficult at times to read due to the heavy nature of the topics discussed but honestly that just is a testament to the quality of the writing. Overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to others.
Thank you again for the ARC copy. I apologize for my delay in reviewing.

Thank you Netgalley and Redhook for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review! Apologies that this is coming more than a year after the publication date. This book is more of a 2.5 rounded to a 3 star book. I was most drawn in by the first third of the book, where we watch Ganga turned into a human and the burden she carries of having to birth the Vasu and free them by murdering them. The stakes were incredibly high, and I wish the book had focused more on this part of her existence, with the rest of her book being more focused on Ganga and her tie to her remaining son Devavrata rather than a full-on retelling of the whole Mahabharata. While the story boasts the relationship between mother and son, I do not get enough of a strong sense of their bond throughout the latter half of the book. I feel this book could have been 50-100 pages shorter and still accomplished what it set out to do (and perhaps would have accomplished it in a stronger sense). While I enjoyed this book, I would not necessarily recommend it unless someone is prepared to read a full-on attempted retelling of a Hindu epic.

DNFed. The concept was very interesting. The writing style was very unique, but just wasn’t really for me. I had a hard time understanding what was happening. I can see the potential but just don’t think this book is for me

I felt a little uneducated while reading this with some of the political/historical details, but otherwise it was beautifully written and the story captured my attention!

3.5 stars
Overall I am rating this low because I was disappointed by the execution, but know that the beginning and end chapters of this are stunning. It is worth struggling through the middle to get to the end: it sticks the landing with very good dramatic justice and some powerful themes. Normally I would have DNF'ed this book if I hadn't known that the end was worth it.

Note that: it's not like Kaikeyi -- it really stands on its own and should be read that way.

This is a story of:
a mother-son relationship
slow-paced family politics and to a certain extent intergenerational trauma
a divisive war based off of the Mahabharata
the relationships between honour, loyalty, lawfulness, inaction, and justice

Themes: I love the way that it depicts motherhood. These reflections are really emotional and well done to me. These themes really took me and made it feel like a stronger book than Kaikeyi in many ways. It depicts really human challenges despite being very mythological. The part in Chapter 29 where she has to kill her son is heartbreaking.

POV: I really loved Ganga's character and her 1st person perspective chapters. I loved the way that many different stories were woven into one at the start when Ganga is being introduced through her memories. I think that the book could have been even more affective if it focused solely on Ganga's place in the whole story and maintained the book from her perspective. This book reminds me that I like my retellings to be more about the adjacent story/stories especially when it has to do with a well-known figure or war. I wasn't crazy about the perspective jump that happens partway through the book, nor the time jumps.

Characters: Ganga was a really strong character and I loved her level of depth, but this book had MANY characters and I often found myself confused between who was who. I expect a myth of this scope to have this many characters, but I think that it would have helped the reader if they had more visually defining features to be able to visualize and differentiate between each of them. The more characters that got introduced, the more complex it became, and the more I lost interest. I also think this story could have used a teeny bit more contextualization for audiences who don’t know the figures from the myths (I was previously familiar with it and even then I was confused).

Pacing: This books' biggest downfall for me was it's pacing. I felt confused and bored for most of the book except for the early chapters focused on Ganga. I wish that the book focused more on Ganga and her relationship to her son, and her character development throughout the years, and less so about the war or politics. This could be personal because slow, plodding books about war and politicking aren't for me, but the whole middle of the book lost my attention. I also found a lot of conversations to be repeated between different characters, nearly word-for-word.

Patel has the incredible ability to make figures of myth take full form - faults and all - and feel incredibly human. I love the way she has brought a humanness to the gods, and tricks and magic to the mundane world. However, overall, I was pretty disappointed by this book because it had such good potential and let me down. I wish that it had kept it's eye on Ganga throughout, and that it was paced just a bit faster in the middle.

4.5 stars
Goddess of the River is a reimagining of Ganga's story, a cursed goddess of the river who became a mortal, and of her equally cursed mortal son, whose fate interweaves with her own. It is told in a way that feels like this is a story being relayed in the oral tradition with a strong voice and lush descriptions of nature.

This book is a beautiful analysis of the contradictions that live within people and human nature, in general. As Ganga seeks to dissociate with the humans, she unwittingly starts to understand how hard it is to live with competing values and external pulls even when one seeks to simply be good. I found this to be particularly impactful. Ganga's character arc evolves (just like a river) with the changes in the human world as war looms ever nearer, and her accepting her place in the world doesn't have to be passive. The author succeeded in building these gradual changes in a way that I found believable but also compelling, making me connect further to Ganda and her journey.

Ganga's human life ends in tragedy as she is separated from her son, Prince Devavrata. All she desires for her son is that he stays uncorrupted, but he is drilled with the need to fulfill his duty and strive to improve his people's lives. So, he is eternally conflicted because sometimes he will need to make choices incompatible with his mother's wishes to do well by his king and people.

If you like mythological retellings such as Circe, I believe you would also appreciate Goddess of the River as it is as lyrically rich and equally deals with the female perspective on (un)familiar myths. Personally, my knowledge of Hindu mythology is limited so I probably missed out on plenty, but I never felt out of depth throughout my reading experience.

Goddess of the River is a retelling of the Mahabharata, an ancient Indian epic centering a war of succession, through the perspective of the goddess Ganga and her son Bhishma.

I was not familiar with source material before picking up this book, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. This is beautifully told story about, among other things, mothers and sons, duty versus righteousness, and what it means to be human.

I quite liked the perspectives of Ganga, a goddess grappling with humanity, and Bhishma, a man trying to make decisions in an impossible situation that he can live with.

Goddess of the River is a contemplative story that asks lots of Big Questions and is comfortable leaving them unanswered.

Thank you Redhook and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy.

I have some knowledge of Hindu mythology being of South Asian descent with a mother who practices but this was still a pretty intricate and complex dive into the story of Ganga. It's a great deal of plot for one book which seems to be a theme between this and another one of Patel's books I have read, and while that would be fine for some people, it may be overwhelming for others.

It is worth it as a first time trek into Hindu mythology. Great character development, beautiful world setup.

3.5 rolled up to 4 stars.

This was a very interesting read. A friend of mine had mentioned it, knowing that I was also familiar with Greek and Roman mythology. She was correct in assuming I’d be intrigued. This book was so interesting and beautiful.

I came in knowing pretty much nothing at all about Indian mythology. Actually, I didn’t know it existed at all. After reading this, I would like to think I have a decent beginners understanding of one story. Hopefully, I get to learn more.

The characters in the story are quite complex. They all have faults, and there isn’t any one character who can be labeled as “pure.” I like this. Humans are truly complex beings, especially when it comes to conflict. Even the gods were complex, and it made the story of substance. The ending really added to the beauty of the story as well with Ganga and Bhishma being together in the end.

I enjoyed this read.


Rating: 3.9/5

Recommend? Yes, expand your horizons!

Unfortunately I was unable to download this book before the archive date, so I'm not able to leave a review. I look forward to reading and reviewing books by this author in the future.

Thank you to Redhook & Orbit for granting me an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel is a reimagined telling of Hindu mythology involving the river goddess Ganga, weaving new characterization depth to her and other involved parties. It is a Dual POV that follows both her and her son, Bhishma - narrating their origins, paths, and the lead up to the war.

Do note that there is various triggering content within the novel which relate to Ganga’s curse and the events of the world. These are events that happen in the Mahabharata but are not graphic in the novel, and a list is given in the beginning.

In addition to the Dual POV, this retelling is told non-chronologically. Despite that it was still easy to follow, since each chapter states both the POV and where in the timeline this occurs. I really enjoyed the flow of Patel’s writing, and I would often read large chunks at a time. It does get a little congested in the middle as numerous new names are introduced when wartime approaches, which was especially difficult when I had to take some breaks from reading. However, I was able to solve that by backreading a bit and doing some light research for context. Were I more familiar with the original text, this probably wouldn’t have been an issue.

I also really enjoyed the voice that Patel used for Ganga. Ganga goes through many journeys such as her motherhood, honor & duty, growth & maturity, navigating mortality vs immortality, and finding her place in the world. Through the writing, I was able to really immerse myself into what the mindset of a goddess could be and I felt empathetic towards her cause.

As someone who loves myth retellings but is not very familiar with the Mahabharata, I found it easy and accessible to follow along in the events and storytelling. Patel was transparent that liberties were taken, as there are many moments in the original source where Ganga’s view was not a focus. This makes it an interesting process to reimagine what Ganga’s thoughts and actions would be in those situations. I will definitely be checking out Patel’s previous works, and I’m looking forward to future ones!

4.5 stars, rounded up.

Vaishnavi Patel has suffered no sophomore slump; GODDESS OF THE RIVER is an incredibly lush reimagining that is both chaotic and flowed with it's storytelling like a river carving through earth.

I'm especially drawn to the way Vaishnavi writes gods/goddesses as flawed and emotional, not simply all powerful. Gods - they're just like us! Her characterization of them made it incredibly easy to rage, love, sympathize and empathize with the choices they made, especially Ganga.

A fantastic book from a fantastic author and I eagerly await more books from her.

I unfortunately had to DNF this book after multiple tries - the writing just simply wasn't for me. It also felt like it required a lot of prior knowledge of the original mythology and felt too slow and complex.

Ganga descends from the stars and is cursed by Shiva to be stuck as a river. She becomes close with the godlings and when they are cursed, she defends them. Now she is cursed to become a mortal woman and give birth to them. She is chosen by a ruler but wants to release them back into their correct form. She must abandon the last one when her curse is fulfilled and that is when things change.

To be honest, I did not have the background knowledge for this book upon my first reading. I was confused. I took some time to read up on the mythology on which this is based and that helped me better understand. Then I listened to it and that really helped.

I enjoyed the story but felt terrible about my lack of understanding the first time. The re-reading proved that this is an excellent book and that sometimes we have to build some background knowledge to better understand.

Thank you to Net Galley and Redhook Books for the DRC. All opinions are my own.

This book takes epic fantasy to a new level. It’s gorgeous and lyrical in its writing, somehow embodying the concept of a sentient river through the prose itself, lilting and gentle, then ferocious and cataclysmic. It’s a masterclass in fantasy literature.

Kaikeyi was a 5 ⭐ read for me so naturally I started Godess Of River her second book with very high expectations.
I liked the whole plot and idea behind it being the story of River Ganga..which I had no idea about.
The first 1/3rd of the book was for me the best as I came to know more about Ganga as a Goddess and then in her mortal form. Bhishma her son has equal weightage in the book and I really enjoyed reading about his moral dilemmas and his need to do be fair and just to his kingdom.
But the later part of the book was Mahabharat retelling though we know the importance of Bhishma in the story .. Ganga's involvement though significance got submerged in the Mahabharata tale which was a bit let down for me as I didn't want to read about the epic battle as much as it was described.
Overall it was a decent read and I especially enjoyed reading the whole origin of Ganga on earth and her subsequent actions.

This book felt like a full immersion into the makings of the Mahabharat from a female perspective, which was both refreshing and an intensely spiritual and emotional journey. Humanizing deities in Hindu scriptures is something that Vaishnavi Patel does masterfully while also making readers feel as if they are involved within the narrative.

4/5 ⭐️ Patel has a way of writing about mothers and sons and their relationship with each other. It’s very layered and beautifully written. The ending was my favorite! And as a mother I can put myself in the mother’s POV wholeheartedly and feel her reasoning behind the decisions she’s made. Patel has done another fantastic job of bringing a story life realistically through mother’s eyes!