fiction
Lakshmi is a henna artist and herbalist, helping the women
of her town prepare for important events and easing their burdens related to
pregnancy. Her life seems to be going well and she has almost paid for the house
she is building. Then, a sister, about whom she never knew, appears in her life.
At the beginning of The Henna Artist, I liked the atmospheric picture painted by
Alka Joshi of the Indian village and customs. I also thought the story had a
lot of promise. But then it became very predictable. I almost stopped reading
2/3 of the way through because the only likable character was 8 years old. All
the characters' underhanded tactics, stupid decisions, poor
behaviors, and selfishness were stacking up to make it difficult to continue
spending time with them. I only kept listening because I generally hate dropping a book after
getting through most of it. Nor did I have another audiobook handy. Guess what? I
was right on every single plot prediction except one. I had not predicted that
one character would turn things around for themself.
The narrator of the audiobook was Sneha Mathan. She did a
nice job with the voice acting and accents but had a limited repertoire of
voices. I’ll give her an A-.
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