I don’t know how you can write a book where nothing happens and at the same time everything is rushed. It would have been a damn interesting thing to read about a goddess becoming mortal. But instead in not even 100 pages it’s rushed through her mortality and back to being a river. I dnf this book at page 150 and it gets only 0.5 🌟 because it’s pretty. The content is a solid 0 😂

3,75 This is not what I usually read and hadn't this been an Illumicrate monthly pick, I, quite frankly, wouldn't have picked it up in the first place. However, this was definitely interesting for many and different reasons. I am, by any and all means, not familiar with Hindu Mythology, so I went completely blind into this. I can see though how a little bit of research beforehand could help better understand and follow certain plot points and family relationships rather than going into this book with zero knowledge. The story of the goddess Ganga is told from two perspectives: Ganga and her son Bhishma. I really liked Ganga's chapters and felt her thoughts and experiences were clearer depicted compared to Bhishma's chapters. I especially enjoyed reading about Ganga's exploration of humanity, being human and all of the human emotions one, even more so a mother, can feel. Bhisma's chapters were, especially so in the beginning, flooded with names and family relations to the point that even with a family tree provided, I was still confused. And I cannot really say that confusion got less throughout the book, even though I started to like his chapters more and more towards the end. Many people gushed over the writing and I do agree that after a certain point (I guess once I hit the 30% mark) it did read more easily, though I cannot really comment on the beauty of it. I'm not sure if it's a me thing or if I was mentally just not feeling it the same way other people did. Having said that, I surprisingly enjoyed this book more than I expected. I was contemplating to DNF in the beginning but I'm glad I didn't. I'm not the intended audience for such a book and to be honest I don't see myself venturing more into this type of books, but I do recommend to give this a try.

From the very beginning I was blown away by the prose of this. To write deep in the POV of a Goddess that is also a river that is also at times in human form - AND to make it work so much that you care and ache for this character - that is just extraordinarily good writing. My feels for her as a mother were overflowing, and going with her to the banks of her own river time and again made me weep inside. I love this whole story arc, along with her struggling with her understanding of humanity and finding her own place in the world.

Overarching is Hindu mythology which I find really fascinating and have not read enough stories about it. However, the whole arc about the war, including so many characters that left me confused, made it hard at times for me to get through this book. I had to struggle to reconnect at times, trying to understand the pacing and what the core of the narrative is about. Which overall leaves me with a 4/5 stars rating. The book definitely has a vibe and emotions that will stay with me for a long time. Thank you @netgalley and @littlebrownbookgroup for the eARC. #GoddessOfTheRiver #Netgalley #bookstagram