Book Review: Kaikeyi

Clue did his best to imitate the cover, but his left side is apparently his favorite. Photo by Kate Ota 2024

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel is a retelling of part of the Ramayana (an Indian epic focused on Rama, one of the avatars of Vishnu). The main character, Kaikeyi, is one of Rama's mothers (technically a step-mother) and is famous for banishing Rama from his home for ten years shortly after he gets married. A good portion of the Ramayana is about those ten years, and Kaikeyi is often cast a a villain. This book looked at things from her perspective, kind of like Wicked. This book was a Book of the Month pick, a NYT Bestseller, and was nominated for the Ignyte Award for best Adult Novel.

Kaikeyi follows the titular character from her childhood through the banishing of Rama. Kaikeyi's mother was banished from her home kingdom by Kaikeyi's father and so Kaikeyi had to take on the burden of raising her seven brothers. As a teenager, she was married off to the king of the nearby kingdom that had great power, but no heir from his first two (still living) wives. Kaikeyi makes a deal: she'll marry him if her first son becomes his heir, regardless of whatever other children he has. He agrees. As you can guess, this becomes a big issue later. This is all going on while Kaikeyi discovers a hidden power, and learns to control it. When faced with choices over the years over what's best for the kingdom or herself, she always chooses the kingdom--but not in the way the men around her would prefer.

This book was interesting. I came at it knowing what the Ramayana was and the basic concepts in it, but no memory of if we discussed the character Kaikeyi in my Asian Cultures class 10+ years ago. I think it definitely justified a lot of Kaikeyi's actions, and made Rama look like the bad guy. (I'm not sure if this is intentional because if Rama is an avatar of a god, shouldn't he be considered at least A good guy if not THE good guy in a retelling?)

Some of Kaikeyi's choices weren't the smartest, and if she'd just stopped to think she could have made better choices. Of course, the author was constrained by the Ramayana, so only so much could really change. Kaikeyi also sometimes came off as Not Like Other Girls, which is among my least favorite tropes.

This books is for you if you enjoy fairy tale retellings from new perspectives, if you want a feminist lens in the Ramayana's world, or if you enjoy stories focused on mothers. It's not for you if you aren't familiar with the Ramayana and don't want to be, if you dislike retellings, or if you aren't in the headspace to read about maternal abandonment.


Have you read Kaikeyi? What other retellings have you enjoyed recently? Let's discuss in the comments!