Really solid read. It doesn't really fit into one genre but reaches into mystery, some Talented Mr. Ripley vibes, satire, humor, and a story about the expectations of women and mothers, all with humor and a fair amount of "what is even happening right now," and it all works really well together. I will agree with some other reviewers that the transition between the two halves of the story causes a little whiplash, but it's quickly forgotten as it gets a little weird. I'm glad I picked it up and definitely recommend it!

A darkly humorous look at the quandaries of motherhood and personhood. I really enjoyed the tone and ideas here! I think the plot wrapped up quickly, but I still had a good time reading this book.

Truly enjoyed my first novel by Sanjena Sathian! As a brown girl, it was comforting to read about a fellow South Asian woman's take on fertility, as it is often complicated by pressure of family and traditionalist views. I also appreciated the messiness that encompassed our FMC - the authenticity of not having it all together at a certain age was very much appreciated.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Press for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to the publishers at Penguin Press for a chance to read “Goddess Complex” by Sanjena Sathian!

A wonderfully weird little satire, “Goddess Complex” follows 30 year old Sanjana Satyananda in the ups and downs of millennial life. After separating from her less than successful husband, terminating an unwanted pregnancy, and stagnating in her PhD program, Sanjana tries to get back in contact with her estranged husband in an effort to move on with her life.

What follows is some bizarre interactions with her loved ones and previous folks in her life who are under the impression that she is pregnant and happily married. She then goes back to India to find her ex, and ends up in an even more bizarre fertility retreat/cult with the leader eerily looking like her, leading to even more strange encounters.

There were some times when I read this book that I wanted it to completely cross the line into flat out comedy and stay there. To me it’s best exemplified in moments like Sanjana housesitting for her sister Maneesha, or any of Killian’s self indulgent explanations for why he is the way he is.

When it shifts out of that, it’s a portrait of a brown girl millennial who honestly just really doesn’t want to be a mom. Sanjana is a little lost, sometimes petty, and the poster child for millennial malaise in the late 2010’s, a la Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age protagonist Emira Tucker. Refreshingly, her character is a huge departure from the typical girlboss or overachiever and while she’s no slouch (after all she is a PhD candidate, multilingual, and an intellectual), Sanjana is just a person. Accomplished, but still adrift.


What’s incredible is the circus society throws around the notion of a woman in “child-bearing years” so cavalier about not wanting children. How dare she not want to irreparably change her life and be responsible for another being for at least the next 18 years? While “Goddess Complex” lost me a little in the second part of the book, the work as a whole is a fascinating dissection of our culture’s obsession with fertility.

wtf did i just read lol? This was equal parts informative and thought provoking and also unhinged. And I liked it! So many times in the second half of the book, i kept saying what is really going on. This book starts off with a lot of talk about millennials and having babies and relationships. Then comes a missing husband, and now a doppelgänger stalker. The transition was not as smooth but it still worked. I have to recommend this to my unhinged girlies. The route i thought this book was going had me totally off.

Goddess Complex is a thought-provoking novel that is equal parts psychological thriller, social satire, and magical realism. The story centers around Sanjana, a 30-something woman who left her husband after admitting she’d had an abortion. Sanjana attempts to begin the divorce process a year later but finds that her husband has gone missing and she starts receiving strange texts congratulating her on her (nonexistent) pregnancy. The novel explores identity, femininity, parenting vs. being childfree-by-choice, Indian American social norms, and so much more. Unpredictable, witty, and wise.

I went into reading GODDESS COMPLEX by Sanjena Sathian as a fan of the author's work. She writes deliciously messy characters and the protagonist of this book Sanjana Satyananda begins the story teetering on disaster. I appreciate how Sathian lets Sanjana make mistakes and then sometimes make them worse even if she was trying to fix something. The main character as well as Sathian's outstanding writing at the line level made this book a fantastic read. I'm not entirely sure the big shift in the novel worked, but I respect Sathian for going weird and going all in with the book she wrote. I look forward to sharing this book with students.

This was interesting, and then the end got really weird 😂.

Sanjana is dealing with a lot. She has dropped out of her masters program, gets married to an aspiring actor who then gets her pregnant, she runs away, has an abortion, and her husband ghosts her after she leaves when she tries to reach out for a divorce. Her family and friends think she’s a mess. Suddenly she starts getting strange messages and phone calls, people reaching out to congratulate her on her pregnancy when no one knew she’d been pregnant, and then someone sends her a photo of her ex that reveals a woman who seems to be trying to take over her former life and live has Sanjana.

I was pretty into this book, and then the like last third turned into a psychological thriller? Which, it says that in the description so I should have known in advance, but it felt like two different books. It was sort of culty in various sections, very messy, I thought the ending was going to be even darker than it was.

Overall, I thought this was fine. I think it would make a good book club book cause there’s a LOT to cover here.

Thank you @netgalley and @penguinpress for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

A year after leaving her husband, Killian, Sanjana is trying to pick up the pieces of her life. She’s struggling to finish her PhD dissertation, casually dating a guy almost 10 years her junior, and watching as friends hit the traditional milestones of adulthood without her. She can’t even get her ex to sign the divorce papers because he lives on the other side of the world and has essentially ghosted her. So she’s shocked when she starts getting messages from unknown numbers and old acquaintances congratulating her on the child she and Killian are apparently expecting. Sanjana knows she’s not pregnant, so what is going on? Is it a cruel prank? An elaborate mixup? Or is there another version of herself out there, living a life she would never choose?

I loved this book. Sanjana is a messy, fun narrator who I would absolutely want to be friends with. The plot is so twisty and fun, and I was eagerly turning the pages, desperate to figure out what was going on. The satire is SO on point, exaggerated enough to be fun yet believable enough that the story still felt true to life. This book is so unique, and it’s definitely going to be one I nag all my friends to read!

I really enjoyed the first part of the book and then the second half of the book left me confused. It was an interesting story about a woman trying to come to terms with whether a past decision was truly the best and trying to stop the pressures of doing what society and her family believes she must do because she's a woman.

The Goddess Complex forces one to look in on themselves and wonder is judging everything others do really was just projecting onto yourself. Really deep psychoanalysis into Sanjana's life and even more poetic descriptions of the mundane lifestyle she is forced to lead while trying to become a better person, whatever version that is supposed to look like. Throwing Sanjana into cult and not knowing what would happen to her, had me devouring the third act of the book, but just glad to not have her end on a cliffhanger, just another choice she can make if she wants to or not, but choosing not to judge herself whichever way she chose.

Succinct and to the point, this novel really taught me the lesson of just enjoying whatever life you choose to create for yourself, total masterpiece.

Goddess Complex by Sanjena Sathian is a well written story that was so hard to put down.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.

I'm here for books about fertility from the Millennial perspective--especially when there's no happily-ever-after baby. 👏👏👏

Sanjana is a down-and-out grad student who has just left her actor husband, in India, after realizing she didn't want children. At 32, she is a adrift just as her best friend and sister go all in on motherhood. Sanjana begins to receive mysterious texts suggesting someone in India is impersonating her-- or is living her counterfactual life-- and returns to India to confront her.

Dark, hilarious, gothic, Hitchcockian at times, if Hitchcock took the inner lives of women seriously and had an absurdist bone in his body. This novel moved me to uproarious laughter, in parts-- but it also just moved me, especially the scenes with her mother. A brilliant book!

I’m not sure if the author was going for satire for the main character or if it was sincere/sarcasm. I struggle with reviews when people insist on their female main characters being likable. The men can behave however but the women have to have enough likability to make it through the book. So, I try to push that aside when reading. I’m also a sarcastic person & tend to appreciate the same in books that I read. That said, this book did not work for me at all. It was over the top to the point that I never connected with the story or the characters.

I didn't have many expectations going into this book, but it immediately sucked me in and I read this in one sitting. This presented and tackles the "women are crazy" trope in such a unique and interesting way, and also tackled fertility issues and pressures that are put on women. I was expecting this book to be more general fiction with the character going on a road of self-discovery, but I was surprised by some twists and mystery-elements that were done very well. In short, I really loved this book and recommend people go into it blind!

I recently reconnected with a college friend after a decade, and as I scrolled through her Instagram and the former classmates I came across through her, I saw photos of engagements, bachelorette parties, and weddings. Golden hour, black tie formal, stunning photos of these girls I once knew—now women—blissfully and beautifully in love. One after another. I called my mom and barely choked out a sentence before bursting into tears. I was bewildered by my reaction, scared, too, having prided myself on being a girl’s girl. Was I secretly a terrible person? 
 
But I realized that the real trigger was deeper than the superficial stimuli. I was overwhelmed by grief over the life I thought I would have when I was 19. The dreams and ambitions I had, whether they were mine or not. Never mind that what I wanted then is incongruous with who I am now. Never mind that I’d take this reality any day over those expectations. To be perceived, once again, by people who knew me and my insecurities at that age—a self that cringes out present day me—was mortifying. 
 
As I read GODDESS COMPLEX, I internalized my mom’s response that marriage is not the silencing of comparison culture and there will always be something up for criticism. Sanjena Sathian’s writing is languid but biting, and her sophomore release is delightfully weird. You should read with as little background as possible. Through Sanjana’s character, I was intrigued by the gatekeeping upheld by those with uteruses surrounding fertility and child rearing, especially the dangers of placing one’s sense of self in being a mother. I was enamored and frustrated by Sanjana’s unabashed selfishness, and I found myself wondering where in my socialization, eastern or western, this reaction had its origins. Where is the line between feminist agency and groupthink, Sathian probes. Part psychological thriller, part satire, I saw that, more than motherhood itself, GODDESS COMPLEX is about how our ideas about ourselves can meld our realities to the extremes and the struggle to discern duty from delusion. 
 
Thank you @penguinpress for the e-ARC. GODDESS COMPLEX is out now 💗

Sanjena is a mess. She's in her 30s, dropped out of her graduate program, trying to divorce a husband she can't find, and making poor life choices. The first half of this book was strong. Just like in "Gold Diggers", Sathian writes a story of a far-from-perfect child of a South Asian immigrant. However, the second half was fairly bizarre, leaning towards dystopian. Perhaps that was on purpose, but it was unexpected and didn't work for me.

An intriguing and different look at motherhood and the choices we make. Sanjana left her husband and now, a year later when she needs him to sign their divorce papers, she can't find him. Someone is sending her DMs about the life she might have had. And then there's Sanjena, This isn't going to be for everyone - I'm not sure it was for me. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

This starts with the classic tale of a chaotic FMC going through a tough time, but really comes into its own when the strange occurrences start ramping up and we dive headfirst into psychological thriller vibes with a side helping of feminist satire and black comedy.

The unravelling of the truth is delightfully unsettling and was an unexpectedly perfect backdrop for Sathian’s insightful commentary on childbearing and the right to choose.

However, there is a passing reference to Israel and the IDF and I can find nothing online to confirm whether Sathian herself is pro-Israel, in which case I would not recommend this book.