The Bandit Queens — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Parini Shiroff
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages: 352

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Geeta's no-good husband disappeared five years ago. She didn't kill him, but everyone thinks she did--no matter how much she protests.

But she soon discovers that being known as a "self-made" widow has some surprising perks. No one messes with her, no one threatens her, and no one tries to control (ahem, marry) her. It's even been good for her business; no one wants to risk getting on her bad side by not buying her jewelry.

Freedom must look good on Geeta, because other women in the village have started asking for her help to get rid of their own no-good husbands...but not all of them are asking nicely.

Now that Geeta's fearsome reputation has become a double-edged sword, she must decide how far to go to protect it, along with the life she's built. Because even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry.

First Impressions

This colorful cover immediately caught my eye. The summary made it sound like a fun mystery about a group of older, underestimated women in an Indian community taking down the abusive men. I saw this book all over online, and it made a very strong first impression, jumping to the top of my 2023 TBRs.

What I thought

Um, well, this book wasn’t quite as lighthearted as the cover makes it seem.

Geeta has been a “widow” for 5 years. Her abusive, alcoholic husband disappeared, but her community believes that she murdered him. When one of the other women in her community comes to her to ask for help to kill her own husband, Geeta is thrown off and finds herself sucked into a world that she never wanted to be a part of.

I feel like this book didn’t get goofy enough. I don’t know if it was the fact that Geeta was just kind of dumb and whiney, or if it was the seriousness of the abuse that happens within the Indian state and community, but it just felt darker and heavier than I expected. At first, Geeta’s naiveté with Farah is a little silly, but then it continues and just got annoying.

I liked seeing Getta realize that she needs her friends and then women in her community to be a stronger person. A lot of how she ended up where she was, was due to isolating herself. It was a struggle to read about the reality of the different Indian caste systems, even though I think it was important and eye opening to read.

There are parts of this book I enjoyed because I felt there were a lot of important lessons within this book. But then sometimes it still felt like it was supposed to be goofy and funny and it took away from some of this seriousness.