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A review by theshiftyshadow
The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
dark
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Really loved this. Not sure why, but there's something keeping me from giving it the full 5 stars, but it's certainly the best book I've read in quite some time.
I think maybe it's a little bit slow to get going, and I couldn't quite get a feel for the tone or the characters for a bit, but once I did it was such a great read.
It does deal with very dark things, and it uses humour a lot while talking about these dark things. That's not going to appeal to everyone but it was right up my street. It's genuinely laugh out loud funny. The relationships between the women are all so messy and complicated but so well fleshed out and believable. You go from hating someone, to rooting for them, to wanting to slap them and back to rooting for them from one scene to the next. We should all be bonobos!
Being set in India it's dealing with so many different social divides and issues, and while some books struggle to manage multiple threads like that, Bandit Queens does a really good job of acknowledging that even though all these characters are women fighting against a common enemy, they're not all doing it from the same starting point.
Just after I finished reading this I happened to see someone log a review of Promising Young Woman on Letterboxd which said something along the lines of "I needed more than just a woman killing men." Ignoring the fact that I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually kill anyone in that film, I did immediately think to myself that's a pretty good way of describing Bandit Queens. It's like if Promising Young Woman had a few extra layers of thoughtful commentary and was really funny. (For the record, I liked PYW as it is, but I know a lot of people think it's shallow at best, tone deaf and offensive at worst)
I even liked the little authors note at the end of this book, where she talks about trying to honour the real Bandit Queen without exploiting her, and how there are centuries of oppression and abuse in all societies and not enough is written about the historically marginalised. It finishes "For me, fiction is where research meets compassion; I believe this is why often facts don't change people's minds, but stories do."
I think maybe it's a little bit slow to get going, and I couldn't quite get a feel for the tone or the characters for a bit, but once I did it was such a great read.
It does deal with very dark things, and it uses humour a lot while talking about these dark things. That's not going to appeal to everyone but it was right up my street. It's genuinely laugh out loud funny. The relationships between the women are all so messy and complicated but so well fleshed out and believable. You go from hating someone, to rooting for them, to wanting to slap them and back to rooting for them from one scene to the next. We should all be bonobos!
Being set in India it's dealing with so many different social divides and issues, and while some books struggle to manage multiple threads like that, Bandit Queens does a really good job of acknowledging that even though all these characters are women fighting against a common enemy, they're not all doing it from the same starting point.
Just after I finished reading this I happened to see someone log a review of Promising Young Woman on Letterboxd which said something along the lines of "I needed more than just a woman killing men." Ignoring the fact that I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually kill anyone in that film, I did immediately think to myself that's a pretty good way of describing Bandit Queens. It's like if Promising Young Woman had a few extra layers of thoughtful commentary and was really funny. (For the record, I liked PYW as it is, but I know a lot of people think it's shallow at best, tone deaf and offensive at worst)
I even liked the little authors note at the end of this book, where she talks about trying to honour the real Bandit Queen without exploiting her, and how there are centuries of oppression and abuse in all societies and not enough is written about the historically marginalised. It finishes "For me, fiction is where research meets compassion; I believe this is why often facts don't change people's minds, but stories do."