Before We Visit The Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Before We Visit The Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni –224 page

Book Blurb:

The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family’s situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single, unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri’s own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother’s choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover—but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she’d imagined. As the marriage crumbles and Bela is forced to forge her own path, she unwittingly imprints her own child, Tara, with indelible lessons about freedom, heartbreak, and loyalty that will take a lifetime to unravel.

My Review: 4 stars

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So much emotion, tenderness, love, regrettable mistakes and blatant misunderstandings rest between the covers of this book. Before We Visit The Goddess covers the connections between mother, daughter and granddaughter and the men that stir between them.

The chapters read like short stories (although they’re not) that linked together to form the overall novel. This book starts strong, wavers a little then finishes with a punch. I really enjoyed learning about these three characters and seeing how their past really does reflect their future.

I love this author’s voice and one of my favorites of all time is Sister Of My Heart. Her prose is prolific and often times poetic.

Quotes I liked:

I don’t put much stock in remembering things. Being able to forget is a superior skill.”

– “The first time you hit your child with all your strength, wanting to hurt, it changes things.”

-“I want to add something about how I feel now, not better exactly, but less alone. But words would spoil it.”

-“What is more painful, the misplaced past or the runaway future? I did not know.”

-“He gave me a look. I was not sure what it meant. Overnight, I had become expressions-illiterate.”

– “She says, ‘Why are you attracted to self-sabotage?’ I don’t know Dr. Berger. It is because it takes less courage to hurt oneself than to hurt others?”