Splendid, vividly compelling. This has been an unforgettable read! It kept me up all night, it was that good. Definitely recommending it to my closed ones.

With the name of my blog being The Lotus Readers, this was one I really had to read. The poetic meaning of the lotus flower is that even out of the muddiest water, something beautiful can grow, I use it as the symbol of my counselling business, because it’s a symbol of renewal and that’s how it’s used here. Our heroine Tara, has been in an arranged marriage to Sanjay for three years when they move to the southern states of America. Isolated and without her family, she feels lonely and is often neglected and even abused by her husband. With so much time on her hands, her mind starts to drift back to the abandonment she felt in childhood, Her parents left India for a new life in Dubai, taking her brother. Tara was left in Mangalore with her grandparents and mentally ill uncle, These circumstances mirror how she feels now and when she develops a connection with some people locally she confides in them about her marriage. Even though they’re relative strangers, they offer help, and Tara accepts. Sadly, her patriarchal family think she should accept her circumstances

Tara discovers self worth and the courage to break free without their approval. She starts to rebuild her life and even meets an old love from her childhood, Cyrus. As always, with events we don’t process and make peace with, the old fears and worries resurface for her. The victim shaming from her family has only been lying dormant. Will she be able to do this, for the sake of her relationship with Cyrus and their future together?

The writing is gorgeous, intimate and incredibly sensual. I felt I knew Tara inside out. The book is so emotionally literate and it gave me the same joy I get when a client comes to a realisation and starts to change their life for the better. Tara is much stronger than she knows, it’s hard to overcome those childhood demons, but when she does it is glorious. This is truly a beautiful read, uplifting, relatable and exceptionally honest. Loved it.

This was a solid read about an Indian woman from Mangalore who finds herself in an arranged marriage, living in Atlanta, GA, and struggling to find personal freedom. There are memoir-ish vibes to the writing and Tara’s journey of self reckoning and self discovery is strong. And genuinely just appreciate seeing Indian women writing novels.

The writing could’ve been much stronger. A lot of telling, the plot sort of stumbles along. Still, I found myself turning the page and curious to see how things would turn out.

I enjoyed this book very much. The narrative is very powerful, and it was satisfying to watch Tara find herself and build a nurturing network of friends and chosen family. Obviously, many trigger warnings for physical, emotional, and verbal abuse and sexual assault apply.

Tara moves to Atlanta for an arranged marriage and slowly extricates herself from her unhappy situation with the help of her network of found friends, also recent immigrants. The focus of the narrative revolves around the positive network of friendships in my opinion, and I appreciated that. Tara does find a positive romantic relationship, but that's the icing on her happiness. Would recommend.

A purple lotus is a symbol of rebirth and this novel lives up to that name. It is the story of a rebirth of an Indian woman who battles through cultural expectations to become her own person. Tara grew up in India and was often left alone. Her parents moved to Dubai when she was young and left her with an uncle who had issues. She ended up turning to books for emotional support. As an adult, Tara is betrothed to an Indian-American who after marrying her returns to the States leaving her behind in India for 3 years alone. Once he finally has her move to America she finds her self still emotionally alone. Her husband, Sanjay, doesn't express any affection for her and often leaves her alone while he stays late at work. Tara starts making some friends and earning her own money and find out more about herself. She suffers from emotional and physical abuse at the hands of her husband. Her family pressures her to stay but Tara feels like she should follow her own heart & spirit.

This was story about Tara overcoming her family's expectations that she be a submissive wife to her husband and just go with things. They are seemingly more concerned about reputation than they are about their daughter's happiness and well-being. This was a tough read at times but Tara was a great protagonist who carved her own path. I enjoyed this read and look forward to more from the author.

This harrowing story follows Tara, an Indian woman who has moved to Atlanta to be with her new husband. Their marriage was arranged and she had only met him a few times before marrying. She hopes she is entering into a loving marriage but she finds herself completely ignored in her new home. Tara is incredibly lonely but brave, and she finds a way to forge her own life in this new country.
This book instantly gripped me. I felt deeply for Tara and the many different hardship she had to endure. This is ultimately a tale about the strength of women. I thought the story got a little slow towards the middle. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

Link to the review posted on my blog: https://thewordglutton.wordpress.com/2020/09/29/purple-lotus-by-veena-rao-review-and-thoughts/

Purple Lotus is an engrossing tale with themes of loss, love, the power of kindness, family values (specifically Indian), and believing in one’s self. It also briefly touches upon the topic of Schizophrenia and how (badly) our society handles mental illnesses. I read the whole book in under 10 hours (that’s like really fast for me 😂) because I could not put it down.

As you may have gathered from the blurb, Purple Lotus is about Tara, who is pressured by her parents into getting married to a stranger through an arranged match. At 28, it’s already too late for her, they say. Her parents are facing pressure from the community to marry their daughter off and the pressure falls onto Tara eventually, who gives in and marries Sanjay. Sanjay, however, is an asshole neglects to arrange for Tara to go live with him in the US, for three years with no explanation whatsoever. This is until he randomly emails her one day and Tara is expected to drop everything and run to him, because that’s what dutiful Indian wives do. There begins a traumatic and abusive marriage that’s made even more difficult by the expectations of a patriarchal society.

The whole concept of arranged marriage hit close to home for me. Too close for comfort, tbh. Purple Lotus perfectly captures the essence of how arranged marriages work in a patriarchal society and how it is often shrouded in pressure and shame, always on the woman’s side of the family. Always. I’m not saying arranged marriages are bad or they’re doomed, not at all. But it’s undeniable that the core concept of it is extremely patriarchal, casteist, and sexist in nature.

Tara’s anxieties and her inner turmoil came through effectively through the pages. She is not unfamiliar with neglect, thanks to her parents. But it hits her harder when marital neglect escalates to physical and emotional abuse. Even as her kind American friends encourage her to take the obvious course of action, she is conflicted about what her parents would say, what her community would say, etc. Predictably enough, her parents are dead against her getting a divorce and remind her often that it’s on her to make this marriage work. “Laying guilt came so naturally to Amma,” relates Tara at one juncture.

I really liked how the author handled the portrayal of Tara’s parents. The monumental role they play in the tiniest decisions Tara has to make in her life for herself, the way Tara’s mother guilt trips her and resorts to victim shaming every time she tries to steer away from the tried and tested Indian way of life, and so on. The narrative switches between Tara’s childhood and her present in a way it gives a complete picture of Tara’s life so far; it makes it easier to understand and empathize with her. In fact, looking back now, Tara feels like an old friend rather than a character in a book.

There were pacing issues in the second half of the book, I felt like it noticeably slowed down after 70% or so. Maybe because there were a lot of happenings crammed in there, the narrative’s focus shifted from Tara’s thought process and went on to “tell” the reader what was happening. It was slow but not to an extent it got unreadable. One of this book’s undeniable strengths is that it’s very readable.

A couple of other things that bothered me were some casteist statements and the treatment of the only Muslim character in the book. I have expanded upon this on my blog.

This novel explores arranged marriages, India tradition and coming to America. Our main character faces abuse and abandonment but the author does not convey the emotion of such treatment. Going further would have made it more of a success story. Description of foods and places a highlight. I love this publisher.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

Purple Lotus is a novel written with a lot of heart. It addresses several powerful themes such as prejudice, acceptance, conditional love from parents, and more.

Rao's debut novel, Purple Lotus, has a lot of good story in it. Unfortunately for me, the execution did not meet the high bar raised by the plot. Purple Lotus is about recovery from abuse, about Indian family values, about how we project our past experiences over how we think others will respond to our actions.

Rao really does a fantastic job of writing what it is like to be living in a situation of emotional abuse. Throughout the first half of the book, I felt like I was there with Tara, feeling my options becoming more and more limited. I was worrying about what to cook my no-good husband for dinner when he was around. I was worrying about what my family would think of our relationship and how they would get along with him. I was worrying about his reaction to me buying thrift store coats.

But then halfway through the story, there is a shift. Tara leaves her husband to become more independent and regain her feelings of self worth. Unfortunately, this is when the writing shifts and I felt I was no longer in the story. Now I'm an observer, a fly on the wall, watching this story as though it is a time lapse through the rest of her life. The story never lingers for long in one place, instead moving forward at irregular intervals, but also never skipping over much. Instead huge swaths of time are condensed into one or two paragraphs, which left the story feeling like a very different book than the one I had started. Suddenly, I looked up from my reading and realized I didn't like any of the characters anymore.

What Rao is trying to do at this point is a very difficult thing to do, which is to unpack the emotional abuse and trauma with her characters. She had been showing us the effects up until this point, now she was attempting to help them recover while they were still experiencing the after-effects. In attempting to convey the experience of trauma, there were often over-explained/over-exaggerating sections about emotions. This over-exaggeration in turn made the characters seem a bit childish, in a way that threw me off from the rest of the story. Now I found myself no longer reading for the journey, but reading just to see the outcome in the end.

This book in an inspiring story about finding your self worth and the courage it takes to face your fears.

This book does an amazing job of showcasing how often times people don’t notice red flags or even realize they’re being abused. While it is abundantly clear to the reader that the way her husband treats her is unacceptable Tara’s thoughts show that she doesn’t think the same way. At one point she is even disappointed that he’s not mad at her because she thinks that means he doesn’t care.

The book also explores what it is like to be a woman in a patriarchal society where the men are valued and the women are picked apart.

We follow Tara on her journey to realizing her self worth and facing her fears in order to gain her personal happiness and the ending was a beautiful tribute to the empowerment of demanding respect.

This is a must read!!

This book pissed me off, but in a good way? Loved Tara, hated Sanjay. Wanted to see SO much goodness for her, and smack the shit out of him.

I came across this book while looking at Netgalley own voices books and was immediately interested. The premise sounded too good. The cherry on the top was that it’s partly set in Mangalore, which is just hours away from me.

When I expressed interest in the book, the author kindly provided me with a review copy. A few days after that, my request for the book on Netgalley was also approved. So you can say that the universe was pushing me to read it.

Thank you to the author and the publisher for providing me with review copies. All opinions are my own.

Note: Since I received an advanced copy, any quotes may be different on actual publication.

I spent about 15 minutes writing the synopsis on top because trying to put down the entirety of this book in a few sentences is HARD. Purple Lotus is so much more than a book about an unhealthy marriage or a woman finding her true love. And I’m here to convince you of that.

Content warnings for the book: abandonment, (physical) domestic abuse.

I would also like to mention that I am an own voices reviewer because of my connection to book’s representation of religion, family, and society. Many themes in this book are very personal to me and I will be writing my thoughts through that lens.

The writing style.
I was absorbed right from the beginning. There are enough descriptions to transport the reader into the book but not too many that the descriptions will distract from the actual story.

The story is also told in two parts with the current timeline following Tara in America and flashbacks where we see Tara growing up in India. The flashbacks were well-placed and took on an air of nostalgia which came through the text.

But my favourite part about the writing was when it dealt with heavy issues. The author has ingeniously brought in discussions about familial expectations, carrying society’s opinions on one’s shoulders, and the struggle between personal happiness and collective happiness. There were several lines in the book which I had to highlight because they accurately describe the situation while also bringing out the emotion. Also those lines just hit me hard personally.

In a culture where personal space was still an alien concept, you were never alone except when you died.

An accurate cultural representation of “marriage”.
Purple Lotus is completely Indian. Half the book is set in Mangalore and the entire book has the backdrop of Indian expectations and beliefs. The author uses this book to pose multiple questions and raise points about the Indian society and way of doing things.

One of the major themes is marriage. Through Tara, we see that marriage is not just a relationship between two individuals. The entire society is involved in a marriage and this starts even before the marriage is agreed to.

Tara’s marriage is an arranged affair, which is very common in India. But it is more likely for such marriages to go wrong than right. After all, two strangers are getting married after meeting maybe once or twice. And the decision to agree to the marriage is not completely in the couple’s hands. The decision is influenced heavily by family and also society.

The biggest problem in the Indian thinking of a marriage is putting all the responsibility on the wife’s shoulders. When Tara’s husband does not make arrangements for her to go to America for three years after their marriage, it’s determined that it must be her fault. When he does call her after years, she is expected to drop her life in an instant and go to him.

When the relationship turns ugly, even up to physical violence, the blame is still on the woman. And the expectation to fix the relationship is also on the woman. This expectation is one way that “reputation in the society” barges itself into a home.

This book brings up how Indian ways of thinking and tradition is harmful even if the people have good intentions. Tara is told to fix her relationship with her husband by her own parents even after bringing up all the ways she has been hurt.

To modern-day keepers of our traditions, I ask: Why is it always the woman who is instructed to try harder to win over her husband, to adjust, to stay silent, to make peace with the injustices she faces? When things go wrong, why can’t she turn to her family? If she finally decides to stand up for herself, why does her family not stand with her?

Basically, this book hits the nail on the head in this topic. I really liked the way the institution and concept of an Indian marriage was handled. We get Tara’s relationship with her abusive husband which is accepted by the society, and then we also get her marriage with a man she loves which is rejected by everyone else. All the nuances with family, relationship, and society comes into picture really well.

The details.
I don’t know what section to put this under so I’m just going to say details.

There are so many small things which set the scene and felt like home to me. From food descriptions, to bringing up Beary Bashe (or Beary language) which is a language here, and descriptions of Mangalore. It really helped set the mood for the book and it brought me closer to the text.

Also there were some things that are so Indian that they me hard. For example, the following quote:

“I want you to be happy,” she said. “That’s all a mother every wants.”
That was Amma’s favourite line, repeated every so often, as if she had a constant need to be absolved of guilt.

My mum is the exact same.

All these details were the reason why this book made a huge impact on me.

A+ character growth.
Character growth is one of the major things which I look for in a book and Purple Lotus delivered in spades.

The book is entirely about Tara’s journey of self-growth. We see enough of her formative years to get a complete understanding of her character including weaknesses and buried emotions. Those flashbacks really help support her story in the current timeline where she is living in America.

I absolutely loved reading through Tara because it helped me fully understand her and relate to her. The inner thoughts and monologues were well-written and never felt out of place.

Mental health representation.
Tara’s uncle, who was one of her primary guardians when she was younger, has schizophrenia.

Since Tara is close to her uncle, we get to see how her relationship with him is affected because of the illness. Along with that, we also see how mental illnesses are perceived in general in India. The reactions to her uncle’s illness which she doesn’t completely understand as a child have an influence on Tara’s thought processes later on.

She wondered now how he had coped with being shunned at weddings and engagements and naming ceremonies. How had he faced the madman label that preceded his arrival even during his brief periods of sanity?

The representation was great because it added so much meaning to the story without pulling the plot in a different direction.

Overall
Tara goes through so much in this book and I felt like I went through it all with her in the span of hours. And it was literally hours because I could not put the book down. I read the last 3/4ths of the book in one sitting.

I highly recommend this book. It is very thoughtful and has been written beautifully.

Also, this would be a really great book club pick because there are several parts that start discussions.

"Like the purple lotus, rarest of rare, you shall rise from muddy waters to rule the world" -

This is a perfect summary for the book and a beautiful apt title!

Purple lotus is the story of Tara, an Indian immigrant who moves to Atlanta to live with her husband of three years for the first time, where she faces both physical and mental abuse. She fights through her circumstances with real grit and finds her sunshine and self-worth in her life after major struggle. My heart wept for her when she went back to her abusive husband simply because it would make her parents happy and would meet society’s expectations.

Her struggle to stay within societal expectations in a patriarchal society and finding something passionate in her life is depicted beautifully. She develops a support system who were truly godsend as they help her in getting out of the abusive marriage. The book depicts dual timelines - Tara’s present and her past where we find out how Tara was abandoned by her own family when she was only a child. Being abandoned by her husband hits harder as it seems like her past that is repeating for her. Truly, life is a vicious circle as she finds a doll that she lost as a kid now after all these years and it symbolizes her self-discovery in life.

Her husband Sanjay was easily one of the characters that I hated right away and the way he treated his wife is beyond horrible. I wish she had made him pay for all the torture. I loved all the food references as they made me nostalgic for Karnataka. My husband recently introduced me to the ice cream sundae - “gadbad” and being reminded of it, I am seriously craving for it now! On another note, Tara is definitely a character I won’t be able to forget for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book!

This was a decent read that delves deep into victim-shaming and its presence in Indian culture. I will be the first to admit that I don't know much about Indian culture, which is why I found this OwnVoices perspective eye-opening.

Tara's story is interesting and a bit heartbreaking. She was left behind by her family when she was just a kid so that she would focus on school. They took her younger brother along with them and left the poor girl with extended family. Her parents apparently didn't think much about leaving her with her grandparents and schizophrenic uncle. This same "leftovers" syndrome carries throughout about 50-60% of the book - no men seem to be eager to marry her so she doesn't get married until her 30s, and even then, it's to a guy that doesn't care about her.

I was really interested in Tara's marriage story with Sanjay and I enjoyed how the author highlighted her family's reactions to her marital problems. I kept thinking, "Why doesn't she just leave?!" even before he became abusive, but then I needed to remind myself that this is not my culture and that my values may differ. It's also really hard to break away from lessons that have been taught to you throughout your whole life and only reinforced by the members of your extended community. It's not fair to judge.

Though I liked the cultural lessons woven into the story, I found some of the writing hard to get through. The beginning of the book in particular was overly descriptive and became a bit tedious to get through. And after her first marriage ended, the story dragged on for a bit. I was surprised to find the book is only a little over 300 pages because it felt like a bit of a chore to finish.

Overall, some good stuff in here but the writing made it a bit hard to get through. Could just be a case of an author's writing style not being for me.

Like the purple lotus, rarest of rare, you shall rise from muddy waters to rule the world"
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Purple Lotus by Veena Rao.@veenarao
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The plot revolves around our female protagonist Tara. When Tara was a little girl her parents left her to her grandparents’ house with a schizophrenic uncle and moved to Dubai with their newly born son for a better life. Tara as a little girl craved for parental love and struggled with her bottle up feelings.
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Later in her life when she grew up she faced constant societal pressure, being 28 not married and not even beautiful. In a hurry her parents marries her with a man in US.While the guy abandons her for three years right after marriage but soon as she lands in US , Tara faces domestic abuses, neglect, ignored. Little did she know her husband was having affair with someone else.
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What shocked me was in such abusive relationship, her parents asked her to compromise and stay with the husband.. It is how Tara got her inner strength, fought back and lived the way she wanted to live and not how others wanted her to do.
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What I loved about the book is the overwhelming usage of simple english making the reading appealing, while portraying the old fashion mind-set of the Indian society.. It has beautifully portrayed the cultural differences and Tara’s lonely years in US , which destroyed her self-worthiness.. This cultural reference reminds me of Jhumpa Lahiri's style, were she explores expatriate Indian in America, The insight of Tara’s disturb life, domestic abuse and coming out and facing the situation and settling back to new life was flawlessly explored by the author, making the book feel so real. The ending was perfect, you cannot have anything better than this.

Thank you #netgalley #shewritespress for the ARC.

Purple Lotus by Veena Rao has a beautiful cover and title, which drew me in immediately, but it is the story itself that will stay with me. It is the story of the Indian culture; the culture which almost destroys the life of the main character due to its mindset of past ideals. We follow our main character as she grows up, losing family and friends along the way, to her abuse arranged marriage and finally, her ending, where she matures and lives for herself, not others. Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and especially, the author for this memorable free ebook in exchange for an honest review. I hope to read more by this author.

Veena Rao’s Purple Lotus is the story of a woman’s growth from submissive—albeit resentful—girl to a self-actualized woman. It’s not much longer than the average novel, but it contains so many years and so much plot that it felt like I dropped into the protagonist’s life as she lived through critical moments. It is a troubling, affecting read that I think will appeal to fans of biographical novels.

Even though its the twenty-first century, Tara’s life is a lot like an Austen novel. She grew up in a comfortably wealthy family of Hindus in Mangalore. She becomes a journalist, but her parents push her to marry. Because she’s in her late 20s, she’s starting to be looked at by her community as a sad spinster. Her parents passed over earlier proposals because Tara’s father refuses to pay a dowry. He calls the practice old-fashioned—not that the rest of their community sees it that way. Tara’s last chance, they believe, is to marry an Indian man who lives in the United States.

When the novel’s setting relocates to the US from Mangalore, Tara starts to reveal the long road of parental neglect and cultural pressure that led her to a bad match. I had to keep hoping that things would get better for Tara. Thankfully, even though things get very dark for her, Tara has a core of steel that she begins to discover. I really like stories about women who find the strength to demand that others treat them with the respect that they deserve. Tara is a good, smart, beautiful woman and, dammit, people need to stop pushing her around.

This novel doesn’t dive as deeply into Hinduism or Mangalore culture as Seven, by Farzana Doctor, delves into Dawoodi culture and religion, unfortunately. But Purple Lotus is definitely a rewarding read—especially since Tara does get a measure of happiness and even payback after a rough life of being ignored, left behind, and scorned.

“The whole of the universe is inside you. To rule yourself is to rule the world.”

Purple Lotus is the story of Tara who is sent from her home in India to live in Atlanta with her stranger of a husband from an arranged marriage. Once Tara arrives in Atlanta, the struggles of her new life remind her of those she faced in her childhood.

Tara’s journey to self empowerment is one that will move you to tears of both sorrow and joy.

This was a great, emotional, and powerful read that is definitely worth your time! A solid 4 stars from me!

A truly moving and life-changing story of a young woman, Tara, from Mangalore, India who finds herself trapped in an arranged marriage with Sanjay. She moves to Atlanta to be with Sanjay, three years after her marriage. Much to her dismay, she is faced with a life of isolation, a loveless marriage, and abuse, bringing back memories of her childhood. At a tender age of 8, Tara is left behind with her aging grandparents while her parents and baby brother move to their new life in Dubai.

We experience how the main character, Tara, who is effortlessly relatable, slowly mature and develops into this strong confident woman. Her journey of self-discovery and her quest for independence is inspiring. It bought tears to my eyes as I experienced her struggles, rejections, and desertion. With fierce determination, she rebuilds her life, and even at the risk of being shunned by her community, she puts her own happiness and future ahead of her and marries her childhood love, Cyrus Saldanha.


Summary: An amazing novel, deeply moving and touching, one of discovery and self-worth. A talented author who keeps one engaged by being real and addresses difficult issues like domestic violence. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel, engaging right to the end, highly recommend it.