This one is tough to rate. The writing is obviously really beautiful and if you listen to the audiobook it’s even more apparent how great the storytelling is. But my interest in the story did dip and never fully went back up.

To reiterate what a lot of people have said, the first part of this book was the strongest. I think the times we spend with Ganga and her point of view feel the most personal and overall more interesting. And the war part and all the complicated familial relationships were a lot less interesting, but I think a big part of that is because so many people were introduced and it was a bit tough to keep track of specially when they disappeared from the story and then popped back up later.

I started to lose interest in the story about 35% because the sudden tone shift was a bit disorienting and I think it took about around 45% to get back into the flow of it.

Amba’s story was probably what kept me interested the most for the rest of the story and wish we would’ve spent more time with that.

I think if we would’ve stayed with Ganga’s point of view I would’ve rated higher but I understand why the author had the additional POVs after I looked up what this book is based on. This is why it’s a bit hard to rate, specially since I haven’t read or know much about Mahabharata. So I’m mostly rating on writing and enjoyment!

Interesting ideas and I liked seeing all the different studies done, but overall it wasn’t anything revelatory.