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yourbookishbff's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri builds a dark and almost claustrophobic fantasy world, set in an alt-India with central conflicts that are largely inspired by South Asian history and a deeply spiritual and elemental magic system. We have all the usual forces at work - an evil emperor, a slow-boiling revolution, and a colonized nation fighting for survival. While the action in this story is confined almost entirely to the shifting walls of an ancient and mysterious temple as our political coup takes shape, this tight focus is counterbalanced with rapidly rotating POVs through a large cast of characters.
At the center of our story, we have three primary female characters - Malini, Priya, and Bhumika - each navigating trauma and their own fight for agency and freedom. Suri develops complex, morally gray women, and Malini, the exiled sister of the emperor, and Priya and Bhumika, former temple children, each challenge the traditional roles often cast for women in fantasy. Malini is openly manipulative and ruthlessly seeks power and agency, while Priya explores the potentially monstrous aspects of her own power and the paths available to her people in their fight for liberation. And while Malini and Priya circle each other for the majority of the story, Bhumika, a side character with main character energy, observes from the shadows, building an army of loyal followers while she works around and against her husband and the empire he serves. At each turn, our female main characters outmaneuver the power-wielding men in their lives, at times in partnership and at times in opposition, but always to advance their own goals.
This is epic fantasy perfect for readers who love She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan, and not only for its strong sapphic romance arc (which is, of course, excellent). This, like She Who Became the Sun, explores the moral sacrifices people make for power, the bloody history of empire and the magic inherent to our world and its ghosts. I loved it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Death, Grief, Classism, Misogyny, Child death, Colonisation, Blood, Xenophobia, Violence, Murder, and Child abuse
Moderate: Medical content, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, and War
inthemoonlight's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Definitely a book with a rich backstory and compelling main characters. Priya, Malini, and Bhumika were definitely the most compelling out of all the narrators.
Does have a *lot* of characters though so it can be hard keeping up with the plot at times figuring out who is who.
Does have a *lot* of characters though so it can be hard keeping up with the plot at times figuring out who is who.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Death, Sexism, and Medical trauma
qtdinh's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
This book really hits every single sweet spot for me when it comes to fantasy (especially as a character driven reader who loves complicated, morally grey, angry women) except for the worldbuilding.
The only reason why I could not give it the full 5 stars is because I cannot ignore the way the author used Indian culture (one that has been specifically filtered through a Brahmin lense) as a crutch when it comes to building the world for the book, borrowing from Hindu texts when it conveniently adds dimensions and layers of meaning to certain thematic threads that the story is shading to pad out the world but without doing legwork of adding the complicated cultural context that underpins those concepts in Indian society. While I myself am not an own voice reviewer, the issue was pointed out to me in a dialogue I had with friend of mine who is (and with whom I was buddy-reading the book), and once I noticed it, I can no longer ignore it.
My main issue with the worldbuilding boils down to this: the concept of virtue, purity and pollution is one that is inherently tied to and shaped by caste hierarchy (https://www.sociologyguide.com/social-stratification/Purity-and-Pollution.php). One cannot touch upon these concepts in and Indian setting without ignoring the caste implications, and it’s woven into the very fabric of Indian culture and society — including how literature (especially Hindu symbology) are weaponized by Brahmins to maintain this caste hierarchy. Caste is all encompassing: “a very deeply rooted generational like accumulation of culture and capital, in terms of what u eat, where u live, what job u work on (it's like the same job for a caste), how much money u have, people being trapped in bonded labour generationally, etc. the closest comparison to it is that it's like... apartheid?“, to quote my friend, and every cultural values in India is refracted through and unquestionably charged by this context.
Yet the book transplants this culturally loaded concept of purity and pollution onto the gender & sexuality as well as geographic (as in city-state) axes without engaging much if at all with the in-world stand-in for caste hierarchy (“high-born, low-born”). This is most evidenced in the way the book explores this idea of purity & pollution through the treatment of Mallani and other royal/highborn women, and it is not just exclusive to Parijati either, as we see similar constraints being placed on Bhumika and her weaponization of innocence, yet the same constraints are not placed on Priya and those assumed to be low-born. Here the book basically incorporates one of the primary cultural narratives derived through caste hierarchy and the complex ways it intersects with “the policing of sexuality women of upper caste” (https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9187:why-are-the-debates-on-menstrual-taboo-one-sided&catid=119:feature&Itemid=132), yet no move was made in the world of the book to extend its thematic critique one step further and actually examines with a critical eye the caste hierarchy that imbued the book’s notions of purity and pollution with its cultural meaning. It also ignores the way upper caste women also discriminate against marginalized lower caste women. You cannot talk about feminism, the marginalization of women, and homophobia in an Indian cultural setting without touching on the way the caste system has shaped all these issues.
In sum, the word of the book presents a view of India (or at least Indian cultural and societal fabric through a fantastical lense) wherein one of the most all encompassing power-structure goes completely unchallenged and questioned. It reads (in my friend’s words, not mine) “like a diaspora author’s romanticization of the homeland and cherry picking of cultural aspects they can dress up and aestheticize as fantasy for the consumption of western eyes, but one that turns a blind eyes the ugly, complex reality of what life in India means when you are not Brahmin and Northern”. Especially when you use the Mahabharata (which is a dominant religious text for the upper caste) as inspiration for your worldbuilding, it is also therefore your responsibility to be keenly aware of the way you might be perpetuating a version of Indian culture that erases the sheer breadth of diversity in the subcontinent. In particular, it erases marginalized women whose identity and politics intersects in complex ways with the Brahmin vision of the world that laid the foundation for the cultural and societal fabric of the book.
While incorporating elements of your own culture into your writing is the right of the own voice author, fully-developed world building aren’t uncritical transplantation of a culture just with a different hat on; in borrowing the societal structure and putting it into a fantasy world to make something new of it, you would HAVE to by nature of the exercise of developing worldbuilding to re-examine who have power and how that power dynamic wormed its way into the cultural fabric that held your fantasy society together. Anything else is an erasure. It’s making the minority culture palatable to a western audience, at the expense of the in-groups who live this reality in the homeland
The only reason why I could not give it the full 5 stars is because I cannot ignore the way the author used Indian culture (one that has been specifically filtered through a Brahmin lense) as a crutch when it comes to building the world for the book, borrowing from Hindu texts when it conveniently adds dimensions and layers of meaning to certain thematic threads that the story is shading to pad out the world but without doing legwork of adding the complicated cultural context that underpins those concepts in Indian society. While I myself am not an own voice reviewer, the issue was pointed out to me in a dialogue I had with friend of mine who is (and with whom I was buddy-reading the book), and once I noticed it, I can no longer ignore it.
My main issue with the worldbuilding boils down to this: the concept of virtue, purity and pollution is one that is inherently tied to and shaped by caste hierarchy (https://www.sociologyguide.com/social-stratification/Purity-and-Pollution.php). One cannot touch upon these concepts in and Indian setting without ignoring the caste implications, and it’s woven into the very fabric of Indian culture and society — including how literature (especially Hindu symbology) are weaponized by Brahmins to maintain this caste hierarchy. Caste is all encompassing: “a very deeply rooted generational like accumulation of culture and capital, in terms of what u eat, where u live, what job u work on (it's like the same job for a caste), how much money u have, people being trapped in bonded labour generationally, etc. the closest comparison to it is that it's like... apartheid?“, to quote my friend, and every cultural values in India is refracted through and unquestionably charged by this context.
Yet the book transplants this culturally loaded concept of purity and pollution onto the gender & sexuality as well as geographic (as in city-state) axes without engaging much if at all with the in-world stand-in for caste hierarchy (“high-born, low-born”). This is most evidenced in the way the book explores this idea of purity & pollution through the treatment of Mallani and other royal/highborn women, and it is not just exclusive to Parijati either, as we see similar constraints being placed on Bhumika and her weaponization of innocence, yet the same constraints are not placed on Priya and those assumed to be low-born. Here the book basically incorporates one of the primary cultural narratives derived through caste hierarchy and the complex ways it intersects with “the policing of sexuality women of upper caste” (https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9187:why-are-the-debates-on-menstrual-taboo-one-sided&catid=119:feature&Itemid=132), yet no move was made in the world of the book to extend its thematic critique one step further and actually examines with a critical eye the caste hierarchy that imbued the book’s notions of purity and pollution with its cultural meaning. It also ignores the way upper caste women also discriminate against marginalized lower caste women. You cannot talk about feminism, the marginalization of women, and homophobia in an Indian cultural setting without touching on the way the caste system has shaped all these issues.
In sum, the word of the book presents a view of India (or at least Indian cultural and societal fabric through a fantastical lense) wherein one of the most all encompassing power-structure goes completely unchallenged and questioned. It reads (in my friend’s words, not mine) “like a diaspora author’s romanticization of the homeland and cherry picking of cultural aspects they can dress up and aestheticize as fantasy for the consumption of western eyes, but one that turns a blind eyes the ugly, complex reality of what life in India means when you are not Brahmin and Northern”. Especially when you use the Mahabharata (which is a dominant religious text for the upper caste) as inspiration for your worldbuilding, it is also therefore your responsibility to be keenly aware of the way you might be perpetuating a version of Indian culture that erases the sheer breadth of diversity in the subcontinent. In particular, it erases marginalized women whose identity and politics intersects in complex ways with the Brahmin vision of the world that laid the foundation for the cultural and societal fabric of the book.
While incorporating elements of your own culture into your writing is the right of the own voice author, fully-developed world building aren’t uncritical transplantation of a culture just with a different hat on; in borrowing the societal structure and putting it into a fantasy world to make something new of it, you would HAVE to by nature of the exercise of developing worldbuilding to re-examine who have power and how that power dynamic wormed its way into the cultural fabric that held your fantasy society together. Anything else is an erasure. It’s making the minority culture palatable to a western audience, at the expense of the in-groups who live this reality in the homeland
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Body horror, Child abuse, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture
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