Review: Abandoned by the Gods by Ronit J

Blurb:

Welcome to Adeva...

A land abandoned by the Gods themselves. The mortals that were left behind built a rich thousand-year history full of legendary exploits.

But history doesn’t remember everyone. Written by the victors, written for them, history has a bad habit of neglecting many.

This collection features four tales of those hapless souls that history forgot. A girl sold into divine servitude who would threaten to change the face of Adeva's history, a noble forced into dacoity fuelled by vengeance, a princess in forbidden love compelled to make an impossible choice, and an ordinary woman fighting to survive through a mad god-king's reign, this collection is an attempt to honour their humanity, to celebrate those who dared to defy norms, dared to thrive despite fate being against them.

Welcome to Adeva. Your faith will not protect you.

Review:

In an earlier review, I mentioned that I wanted to collect and read the books fellow SFF Insiders have put out into the world, if they have written one. “Abandoned on the Gods” was just recently added to that, and in all seriousness, Ronit J. has crafted a world wherein you feel compelled to watch the lives of ordinary people fall apart in a train wreck of coincidences, happenstances, and their lot in life. But even then, some happiness and joy can be found in these stories.. Well, “some” is an over exaggeration. Two of these tales end without happiness and joy, two do. But that is only a fraction of the emotions held within these tales.

If you look at what I said to get you to click on this review, without the “Care to know more?”, there are mentions of four short stories, four snippets of life, and the everyday descriptors for the characters that lead us through the story. A priestess, a princess, a criminall and a cook. All of them have a different lot in life. All of them are witnessing a historical event unfold, yet none of them are witnessing the same one. Despite the fact that none of them ever meet each other, or the fact that none of them witness the same historical event, all of them have something in common with each other. Their emotions. All of them have felt rage, despair, triumph, anguish. But that only scratches the surface of what these short stories are, so let me try to elaborate that without spoiling the collection of tales in the process.

First of all, due to this being a collection of short tales, I’ll be talking about each story separately in blocks. 

For the first story, “Servant of God”, in terms of a central character, we have Jagadasi. Jagadasi is a child who got sold to a temple. She goes from an innocent child to a righteous killer priest within the short span of time we get to know her. Throughout it all she experiences some trauma, a few kind words from a wandering priest, a wandering pundit by the name of Punyamaan, who we barely get to know, and finally, power over kings, rajas in the world of Adeva

Then, there’s the plot. Jagadasi gets sold to a temple of Jagarakshaka within her own village by her own parents, then gets abused in that temple before taking out all that anger at those within with a blade. Everyone else sees it as a holy act and that’s when things start looking good for her, until they don’t. 

After that, there’s the religious aspect, that being the temple Jagadasi is sold to. It abused those in their care for greed, worldly gain. It also shows how easy religious zeal can be used to cause disturbances brought together for the betterment of the society Jagadasi lived in. 

Finally, because trigger warnings were listed for this short story (and the others), I’ll list them here now, because it would be remiss of me not to do so. The trigger warnings for this short story are the following: 

• Strong language

• Blasphemy

• Violence and Gore

• Discrimination, Casteism and Classism

• Sexism and sexual assault

• Gaslighting

The second story, “The Princess who loved her maid” is told to us from the perspective of Illava, who loves her maid Raci enough to the point of abandoning court. She’s at the point where nothing will stop her from marrying her love. Two issues though, well, just one if you consider the fact that the court politics, one of the two issues, is connected to the other, her father, a raja. Throughout this tale she’s determined and stubborn, but will that see her through to the end? That is the question.

Then, the plot of this story is more simplistic than the last one, yet it keeps the allure. If I had to describe it in a way that doesn’t spoil this short story at all, I’d have to say that it goes along the line of forbidden love, then forced marriage contract, desire to get out of it, and then finally going along with it in her own way. This is one of the two that ends happily, despite the rather sudden twist at the end.

Like with the first tale, I’ll be adding the trigger warnings, because, once again, I’d be remiss not to add them. Without further ado, here is the list of trigger warnings for “The Princess who loved her maid”:

• Strong language

• Blasphemy

• Discrimination, casteism, classism

• Sexism, domestic violence

Now onto the third story within this four. Following the rhythm, the ductus of this book, it plays out in a tragic, happy, tragic, happy. Why should it not? It works.

For this tale, the one aptly titled “Dacoit, Son of a Noble” follows the brief life of Bhola. Bhola has a grudge against the current king who is undertaking the pilgrimage to become a god. We follow his life from a scared child to a ruthless highway bandit who wants to kill King Ananda, the aforementioned king who’s taking the ascension pilgrimage. He took a much more scenic route than the other two, with his childish nature being burned away by pure wrath directed towards the one who ordered his family killed. And therefore his end was much more public, for a lack of a better word.

This brings me to the plot. The plot of this is basically “you kill my family so I kill you out of revenge”. I won’t say more than that, won’t say less. It’s basically a coin of brutality. One is the tail end, the one reviled by everyone else for what he is doing, even though he has a reason for it, and the other is revered as a hero for undertaking a quest of ascension via murder. 

I’ve already kind of veered into it, but I’ll go back to that in this paragraph. The duality of Bhola and King Ananda. They are the same, yet not the same. One wants to be seen as a god, the other seeks revenge. Both leave a trail of death in their wake. And the way that is represented to us reading this short story. That stuck out to me. It’s far more difficult to get a short story to have the same depth as a full length novel, but that aspect was done in such a way that it didn’t feel like I was reading a short story at all, but instead an actual novel.

Again, like the last two, I’d be remiss not to place out the trigger warning that was included for this short tale, especially since I could see some people wanting to set this story down and seethe about it if there was no knowledge of these triggers. Those triggers would be, as stated by the individual blurb would be:

• Strong language

• Blasphemy

• Hate speech

• Violence, gore and dismemberment

Finally, we arrive at the tastiest part of the book, mostly due to the fact that the main character of this book is a cook. A cook with a delicious recipe for chutney, to be exact. Does that play a huge role in this tale? Maybe. 

Without much further ado, I’ll start with character introductions, as much as I can. There’s an ordinary woman whose family has had a chutney recipe in the family for a few generations. She’s determined, glad to be a family with her husband and kids, but worries about the fanaticism that has taken over much of the village. I liked her storyline and felt worse about her supposed fate than that of the others. Jagadasi grew too power hungry, Ilava got humbled for her brash choices, and Bholas cycle of violence rebounded unto him. Here, this woman? Nothing but good choices to make sure her family stays safe.

Before I deviate too far and the plot line gets lost in the ramblings of someone who throws thoughts onto the screen in words, I’ll throw a quick explanation of the plot here:

“Woman has a family, religious zeal takes over the lands for the mad god king, she tries escaping, it somehow works (with trauma being the only mentionable side effect), and she lives happily ever after”

That’s only a vague description of that plot line though, and there is so much more to explore within this short story.

This takes me to the religious fanaticism displayed within “A Bittersweet Chutney”. It’s displayed from the view of someone who suffers somewhat under it, but it shows that due to that fanaticism, all who don’t believe, suffer. Whether mildly, or intensely, they suffer. And the way it’s brought across. Well done.

Just like the last three, there are trigger warnings for “A Bittersweet Chutney”. But, if you’ve been keeping track, that list of trigger warnings has decreased by a small bit (Ten, seven, and six). This one, despite being cheerful, has increased again with the warnings, and again, I can see why they were added for this one. For the last time in this review, here is a list of trigger warnings for “A Bittersweet Chutney”:

• Strong language

• Hate speech

• Violence, gore and dismemberment

• Discrimination

• Sexism

Overall, if I had to say anything negative about each of these short stories is just that. They’re short stories. I want to know more about the world, more about the world of Adeva and their Hinduesque religion. Aside from that, I’d have to say that some things might end up google-worthy when you read through this tale, due to the fact that some words from the Hindu language are used within “Abandoned by the Gods”.

Despite that, I’d have to say that if you want a collection of short stories playing out within the realm of a new world before the first actual novel comes out, I’d hand you this book, a box of tissue papers for the inevitable trauma in each tale, and wish you happy reading.

As always, if you’ve made it to the end of this review, especially how lengthy it is compared to my other ones, thank you. I hope I’ve nudged you towards your next read (next four if you were to split it up). If this doesn’t seem like your cup of tea, don’t fret. There are plenty more reviews for you to look up on this site for other books that might’ve piqued your interest, with novels in almost any genre. We’d be delighted if any of our reviews have helped point you to your next read.

Wherever you are reading this, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night!