I’ve been wanting to read Kaikeyi for such a long time, so I have to once again give a shout out to the Aspec Book Club for giving me the push to read it as our April book! I haven’t read a novel that has had an enormous amount of impact on me in quite a while. At its heart, Kaikeyi is the story of a woman doing what she can, in a world of oppressors, to not only prosper, but thrive. Kaikeyi takes the power she has (political and magical) and uses it to transform herself from an object to be sold and bartered to the person with the bargaining power. And once she does this, she uses her status to help other women. But she is not perfect, which makes her even more admirable to me. She has flaws that she must confront, which makes her more well-rounded and relatable. Everyone should read this book. It reads as an epic (which it should, because it is based off of the Ramayana), but also offers a well-written character study.