4 days ago
Must read!
The last chapter just gave me goosebumps.
The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Paperback)
by by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Author) Format: Paperback
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Customers say
✨ AI-generated from reviewsCustomers find this book thought-provoking, offering a fresh perspective on the Ramayana and teaching valuable lessons. Moreover, the writing style receives praise, with one customer noting how it flawlessly humanizes the characters, while others appreciate how it unravels ordinary emotions beautifully. Additionally, customers describe the book as enthralling, with one mentioning it's a good read immediately after Valmiki's Ramayan, and they find it visually appealing, with one noting its beautiful depiction of the story.
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Reviews
Loved by 8 customers.
4.8
Based on 8 reviews
2 weeks ago
The author is awesome
Incredible book. Must read.
3 weeks ago
I love it
Beautiful beautiful beautiful
1 month ago
11 hours, 350 pages, zero boredom.
11 hours, 350 pages, zero boredom.What an engaging read it was. It doesn't feel like you're reading a dusty old legend, it feels like sitting across from someone who's finally telling you her side of a story that broke her heart. You go in knowing how the Ramayana ends, yet @divakarunichitra writes Sita's inner world with so much warmth, quiet fury, and sheer honesty that you still catch yourself holding your breath.It's that rare kind of book where the emotional weight just settles in your chest, making hours melt away because you're so tied to her voice, her love, and her dignity.
2 months ago
Must read!
An excellently written version of the traditional Ramayan as the modern-style Sitayan! The story offers a fresh perspective to look at it, as most humans hardly think of how Sita must have seen her story with Ram or must have lived through such an unimaginably challenging life. Through this book, they can dive deeper into Sita's soul and feel what she felt and heal what she healed inside her. Women will especially relate to her emotions, feelings, and most of all, her immense inner strength. How much more spiritually evolved Sita was in comparison to Ram can be easily witnessed here. Dealing with the divine masculine's inner conflicts and understanding his want for controlling the divine feminine, yet staying graceful to him while in love as the divine feminine, is a commendable job worthy of all the love and respect by the watchers. It's almost impossible for the bravest of souls to go through and survive what Sita went through, but we still have to keep developing our strength, because we will all face her life one day and can learn from her what to do and not to do when we are in similar situations as hers. Life is still the same as it was in Treta Yuga and the story of the divine masculine and the divine feminine is still the same. Women are still being controlled and being asked to prove their truth, but we are a generation that can transform and bring a change to this story, so that no other Sita needs to undergo an agni pariksha ever again. Please read this book, shed a few tears with Sita, and get inspired by her to raise your oppressed voice for the betterment of humanity. Your voice in favor of women's rights will be the real tribute to Sita's powerful spirit.
5 years ago
I am glad we have another voice of Sita, a real voice who can stand for her own
He has come to teach the men, but you have come to teach the women. The lesson you teach will be a quieter one, but as important.Most of us know Ramayan, having heard it from the mouths of our grandparents or having read/saw it as kids, or, having at least acquainted ourselves with the basic facts, post the Babri Masjid-Ram Janma Bhoomi issue. With mythology becoming the hottest trend in the story writing market for some years now, I must say it was getting annoying to see everyone trying their hands at it. Choosing the right one seemed impossible. What if it was just fan-fiction? (I must mention here that I am not too fond of fan fiction, I find them ruinous) Or worse, what if some writer was just trying to get in a few bucks by preaching rather than actually presenting a worthwhile retelling to the readers?Write our story, too. For always we’ve been pushed into corners, trivialized, misunderstood, blamed, forgotten- or maligned and used as cautionary tales.The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is not a retelling of Ramayan, it is, for lack of a better word, Sitayan. Because it is the story of Sita, from her own mouth. It is the story of Sunaina, helping her husband Janak run the kingdom from behind closed doors. It is the story of Kaushalya, a queen forgotten. It is the story of Kaikeyi, a woman who’s role as a mother clouded every other aspect of her life. It is the story of Urmila, left behind to wait and weep. It is the story of Meenakshi turned Surpanakha, the trusting asura. It is the story of Ahalya, the unfairly judged. It is the story of Mandodari, the blind supporter of her husband. It is the story of us women, in this world, and those who were before us and will come after us. And most of all, it is a story about women in love.Red. But of course. How else could I write my story except in the color of menstruation and childbirth, the color of the marriage mark that changes women’s lives, the color of the flowers of the Ashoka tree under which I had spent my years of captivity in the palace of the demon king?Sita was found as an infant by the King of Mithila and lived her life as a princess, the elder daughter of King Janak and Queen Sunaina, along with her jovial younger sister Urmila. Both the princesses shared a camaraderie beyond just words. They knew the other without them telling anything. So when brothers Ram and Lakshman came to the palace with their Guru, both knew that the other had lost her heart to the respective brother.“Remember this, too: sometimes our ill luck has consequences that bless others”Marriage was bliss. Love was aplenty and so were pleasures and comfort in the palace of Dasharath, father of their husbands and King of Koshal. The coronation day arrived in a blink of an eye, love tends to do that, pass time like it was just yesterday when they were gawking at the handsome princes in their father’s palace. And then it was time for the fates to turn. Exiled for 14 years of forest living, Ram and Sita along with Lakshman made their way away from the palace and Ayodhya.Years passed with simple living and minimal troubles. But just when their exile was about to end, Sita was abducted by the demon king. Prisoned and guarded all the time, time seemed to stop for Sita. Waiting for Ram to come and rescue her was the hardest thing she had to do, or so she thought. But when she was finally reunited with her beloved, she faced her life’s exams, and it was even more difficult than the year she spent in captivity.“What occurred when I was alone in the darkness, under the sorrow tree, you don’t know. You don’t know my despair. You don’t even know my exhilaration, how it felt- first in the forest and then in Ayodhya- when I was the most beloved woman in creation.”Oh, what a book it was! Lucid and profound, the words slipped easily into my mind and it wasn’t long before I was deep into Sita’s world. Ms. Banerjee’s Sitayan is so relatable! Why couldn't we have been exposed to such interpretations earlier in life? Why did we have to think that being perfect is the benchmark? Why did we have to grow up thinking that ‘Agni Pariksha’ was necessary to prove women’s innocence and purity? And what does purity even mean? Is it of body or mind? And why, o why, does ‘Log kya kahenge’ matter so much!?“Anything that makes us forget our true selves is a trap, princess- even something we love or define as beautiful.”Ms. Banerjee, for me, has done justice to the topic she chose. Trust me when I say this because we are a community of unbending uptight people who regard such writings as blasphemy as they don’t sit well with our patriarchal setups. Although I don’t really know/believe that epics like these are true or not, I cringe when someone breaks them into thousand pieces and makes something indigestible. Why then, this has me swooning all over? Because it has blown me over with the portrayal of love and its different facets at every step. The lovers’ love, the mother-child love, the
Q&A
Questions? We've got answers.
FAQs
Yes, many readers say the novel brings a new perspective to a familiar epic. Reviews mention that even when the ending is known, Sita's inner voice keeps the story engaging.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's narration gives mythic figures a more human emotional range. Buyers often praise how the writing brings out love, doubt, endurance, and conflict instead of treating the characters as distant icons.
Most reviewers find the prose smooth and accessible. Reader feedback calls the book easy to read, and one customer specifically mentions that the pacing works well for a commute read.
Many buyers describe the novel as gripping and enthralling. Reviews repeatedly say the storytelling makes a familiar Ramayana retelling feel vivid rather than dusty or remote.
Yes, the recommended reading age is 14 years and up. English-language teen and adult readers who enjoy mythology, sagas, or character-led fiction should find the novel approachable.
Expect a full-length paperback with 372 pages. Several readers still describe the experience as absorbing, so the length reads more like a sustained narrative than a slow one.
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