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Bitch Goddess for Dummies
Tired of being a pushover and a wimp, Mira Iyer decides to change her life forever. Thus begins Project Bitch Goddess. She junks her Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes image and brings out the killer stilettos. She demands her boss’s attention, and the next promotion, and matches her crafty colleague, the impossibly beautiful Sanya, move for move. But when Mira starts playing mind games with the suave Rohan—whom Sanya is also desperately trying to woo—things threaten to go too far. Then, Mira’s half-sister lands at her doorstep, and compels her to confront her estranged father— and her long-closeted inner demons. Will the snappy Bitch Goddess Rules come to
Mira’s rescue, or leave her scarred?
Set in Singapore and India, Bitch Goddess for Dummies is replete with dark humour and is a powerful antidote for those who must suffer because they are too nice.
Mira’s rescue, or leave her scarred?
Set in Singapore and India, Bitch Goddess for Dummies is replete with dark humour and is a powerful antidote for those who must suffer because they are too nice.
- GenresChick Lit
260 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
96 people want to read
About the author
Maya Sharma Sriram
2 books9 followersMaya Sharma Sriram is a full time writer . She is one of the winners of the Elle Fiction Awards , 20`10. She writes , dreams and raises a family. She is married to man who has wheels where feet should be. She currently lives in New Delhi. Tomorrow, however, is another story.
Bitch Goddess for dummies, her first book. marks her literary debut with a racy writing style and an original approach to storytelling. After several failed attempts at becoming either a bitch or a goddess, Maya paused in her tracks abandoned all such efforts and wrote this book instead.
She can be contacted at mayasram@gmail.com or on her facebook page -http://www.facebook.com/maya.sriram. She would love to hear from you.
Bitch Goddess for dummies, her first book. marks her literary debut with a racy writing style and an original approach to storytelling. After several failed attempts at becoming either a bitch or a goddess, Maya paused in her tracks abandoned all such efforts and wrote this book instead.
She can be contacted at mayasram@gmail.com or on her facebook page -http://www.facebook.com/maya.sriram. She would love to hear from you.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 6, 2013
I just finished reading the book and what I loved about it was how well paced it was and the trajectory of the plot, it flowed and it never felt stilted.
It would be hard to come across a woman who hasn't seen flashes of Mira in her persona, so there was that element of instant identification. There is only so much a girl can take before the horns come out!
My favorite passage appeared on Page 105 where Mira and her mom have a real heart-to-heart over the phone and her mother opens up to say that she doesn't feel happy or nostalgic at thoughts of the good times and that all that happened in her life, before the divorce, had become a lie. That was an insightful passage, a memorable one.
However, I felt that all the relationships in the novel could have been better explored; between Mira's mom and dad, between Vinay and Mira, even between Rohan and Mira and Rohan and Sanya. I found it rather strange when Rohan accused Mira of using him for sex when Rohan and Mira had only been together once and it was her first time.
But other than that it was an enjoyable read reminiscent in some ways of Bridget Jones' Diary.
It would be hard to come across a woman who hasn't seen flashes of Mira in her persona, so there was that element of instant identification. There is only so much a girl can take before the horns come out!
My favorite passage appeared on Page 105 where Mira and her mom have a real heart-to-heart over the phone and her mother opens up to say that she doesn't feel happy or nostalgic at thoughts of the good times and that all that happened in her life, before the divorce, had become a lie. That was an insightful passage, a memorable one.
However, I felt that all the relationships in the novel could have been better explored; between Mira's mom and dad, between Vinay and Mira, even between Rohan and Mira and Rohan and Sanya. I found it rather strange when Rohan accused Mira of using him for sex when Rohan and Mira had only been together once and it was her first time.
But other than that it was an enjoyable read reminiscent in some ways of Bridget Jones' Diary.
June 3, 2020
Recently, I attended a zoom session on chick lit by the Chennai Lockdown Literary Festival (CLLF). In the session, one of the speakers was Maya Sharma Sriram. I was so impressed with the way she conducted the session and answered the questions that I decided to pick up her chick lit novel, ‘Bitch Goddess for Dummies’ brought out by Rupa Publications in 2012. And I was not disappointed. I’m not sure if I was biased toward the book by the personality I had seen on zoom or not, but I quite enjoy chick lit and have read several chick lit novels in my thirties.
So the novel is about a 27-year-old woman Mira Iyer who decides to transform her personality from good girl to ‘bitch goddess’ to deal with the people in her life. Her mom who is constantly trying to fix her up with some eligible guy so that she can get married and Sanya, the real office bitch who is always cosying up to their bosses and vying for a promotion, are just two of the people in her life causing her angst. So it’s goodbye good girl and hello bitch goddess! Mira actually even googles how to become a bitch goddess and has a complete wardrobe makeover as well.
Mira’s troubled relationship with her absentee father is explored in detail and lends some depth to this novel. Right in the middle of the novel, Mira’s step sister makes an appearance and the rest of the novel is about how Mira lays some demons to rest by getting to know her dad’s second family, the one he created after leaving Mira and her mom.
In one part of the book, Mira says her life was beginning to look like one of those bad Tamil soap operas that her mom always watched, with a man having two families, step children and the works, but since I’ve never watched any of these soap operas, I didn’t see the parallels.
Set in Singapore and Singara Chennai and featuring a Tamil heroine, this chick lit novel has a protagonist that is a virgin at age twenty-seven.
Although, I found it strange that someone would try to woo a man just to prove she was a bitch goddess and take him away from another woman, I kept turning the pages to see how the story would turn out. Since it was witty and engaging, I suspended my sense of judgement and just read on. On the whole, I think lovers of chick lit will enjoy this one.
So the novel is about a 27-year-old woman Mira Iyer who decides to transform her personality from good girl to ‘bitch goddess’ to deal with the people in her life. Her mom who is constantly trying to fix her up with some eligible guy so that she can get married and Sanya, the real office bitch who is always cosying up to their bosses and vying for a promotion, are just two of the people in her life causing her angst. So it’s goodbye good girl and hello bitch goddess! Mira actually even googles how to become a bitch goddess and has a complete wardrobe makeover as well.
Mira’s troubled relationship with her absentee father is explored in detail and lends some depth to this novel. Right in the middle of the novel, Mira’s step sister makes an appearance and the rest of the novel is about how Mira lays some demons to rest by getting to know her dad’s second family, the one he created after leaving Mira and her mom.
In one part of the book, Mira says her life was beginning to look like one of those bad Tamil soap operas that her mom always watched, with a man having two families, step children and the works, but since I’ve never watched any of these soap operas, I didn’t see the parallels.
Set in Singapore and Singara Chennai and featuring a Tamil heroine, this chick lit novel has a protagonist that is a virgin at age twenty-seven.
Although, I found it strange that someone would try to woo a man just to prove she was a bitch goddess and take him away from another woman, I kept turning the pages to see how the story would turn out. Since it was witty and engaging, I suspended my sense of judgement and just read on. On the whole, I think lovers of chick lit will enjoy this one.
May 19, 2019
good
January 26, 2013
I admit it, the title put me off. I was given the book by a publisher who asked me to consider leading a panel where the book would be discussed and I thought: Keep an open mind. From the start, I couldn’t relate to the protagonist Mira Iyer – who is a twenty-seven-year-old single, indepent, modern woman living in Singapore – a TamBram as she calls herself. I realised later that it stood for Tamilian Brahmin.
It’s a simple story for this modern world. Girl’s father left and divorced mother then married the person he’d been seeing and started a family with them. Mira has been traumatised by it. She’s fed up of being out-dressed, out-styled and out-manouvered by the office bitch and her side-kick is a prop to the devilish persona she half-heartedly tries to take on: Bitch Goddess. The chapters are punctuated by Bitch Goddess rules and unfortunately there are 21. In my view, they’re all unhelpful and unrelatable. The story is supposed to be about a good girl who tries to go bad and fails at it, but learns to get what she wants using her own personality. She gets the guy, the job, her father and even a couple of extra siblings in the end. I honestly would never even have picked this book off the shelf – I read it because I had to, keeping copious notes as I read, then when the event was cancelled was sufficiently invested in it to see whether it improved. Towards the end – the last third of the book – I skim-read large chunks of predictable mush: father-daughter confrontation in a hospital, the good guy turns out to be the perfect guy, the office side-kick fades into the distance, the initially annoying mother turns out to be a wise, forgiving type who is always right. Gosh – it was just all tiring, boring fluff. But I did the work so now I feel compelled to add it to Goodreads so that it can help me reach my target!
I do have to say that the title is unhelpful and outdated – women in the workforce are expected to understand their own value and strengths now and to be empowered. Trying to be a man is O-U-T! Also, considering the title, the protagonists could have done more to be bitchier but I didn’t find them relatable or strong. Books are hard to write, so credit to the novelist for getting a start, a middle and an ending together. The style is clear, simple and enjoyable, allowing for one chapter to flow easily into the next.
It’s a simple story for this modern world. Girl’s father left and divorced mother then married the person he’d been seeing and started a family with them. Mira has been traumatised by it. She’s fed up of being out-dressed, out-styled and out-manouvered by the office bitch and her side-kick is a prop to the devilish persona she half-heartedly tries to take on: Bitch Goddess. The chapters are punctuated by Bitch Goddess rules and unfortunately there are 21. In my view, they’re all unhelpful and unrelatable. The story is supposed to be about a good girl who tries to go bad and fails at it, but learns to get what she wants using her own personality. She gets the guy, the job, her father and even a couple of extra siblings in the end. I honestly would never even have picked this book off the shelf – I read it because I had to, keeping copious notes as I read, then when the event was cancelled was sufficiently invested in it to see whether it improved. Towards the end – the last third of the book – I skim-read large chunks of predictable mush: father-daughter confrontation in a hospital, the good guy turns out to be the perfect guy, the office side-kick fades into the distance, the initially annoying mother turns out to be a wise, forgiving type who is always right. Gosh – it was just all tiring, boring fluff. But I did the work so now I feel compelled to add it to Goodreads so that it can help me reach my target!
I do have to say that the title is unhelpful and outdated – women in the workforce are expected to understand their own value and strengths now and to be empowered. Trying to be a man is O-U-T! Also, considering the title, the protagonists could have done more to be bitchier but I didn’t find them relatable or strong. Books are hard to write, so credit to the novelist for getting a start, a middle and an ending together. The style is clear, simple and enjoyable, allowing for one chapter to flow easily into the next.
September 26, 2024
I'm rewriting this review after years of having read the book. So many sections of the book resonated with me over the years.
First the confession - the author is a very dear friend. So, being objective is twice as hard or easy, depending on whether one is a goddess or a bitch ;-). I'll just be the reader-reviewer and hope I can do justice. I love the quality of the language (words like solecism!) and insights that have gone into what could have easily been 'just a chick-lit' with all the loaded connotations that the inverted commas bring to the term.
If you're a strict genre-reader, this is, for want of a better description, chick-lit. I'm not getting into the story - that's already in the description. The romance is incidental but not dispensable - it adds to the conflict.
I do wish the author had upped the ante a notch higher with what Mira could do in the Bitch Goddess haze - go all the way evil - but for Mira to come this far by suppressing that pinging inner voice of reason is itself a major achievement. This makes it more relatable!
The motivations of the characters ring true. What I particularly loved were some of the little social insights across the book, like the mild frisson of recognition that passes through two people of the same upbringing when they meet in a foreign country, the way The Other Woman will perhaps always remain that and the way Tamil Brahmin fathers and mothers are internally wired.
First the confession - the author is a very dear friend. So, being objective is twice as hard or easy, depending on whether one is a goddess or a bitch ;-). I'll just be the reader-reviewer and hope I can do justice. I love the quality of the language (words like solecism!) and insights that have gone into what could have easily been 'just a chick-lit' with all the loaded connotations that the inverted commas bring to the term.
If you're a strict genre-reader, this is, for want of a better description, chick-lit. I'm not getting into the story - that's already in the description. The romance is incidental but not dispensable - it adds to the conflict.
I do wish the author had upped the ante a notch higher with what Mira could do in the Bitch Goddess haze - go all the way evil - but for Mira to come this far by suppressing that pinging inner voice of reason is itself a major achievement. This makes it more relatable!
The motivations of the characters ring true. What I particularly loved were some of the little social insights across the book, like the mild frisson of recognition that passes through two people of the same upbringing when they meet in a foreign country, the way The Other Woman will perhaps always remain that and the way Tamil Brahmin fathers and mothers are internally wired.
July 22, 2021
This book is all the things a fun romp-y women's fiction should be - light-hearted, fun, well written, and with a crazy protagonist who gets into all the worst situations for all the funniest reasons. The book balances the bitch goddess transformation with a heavier emotional journey that delves into why women feel morality isn't rewarded by a society that is constantly rigged to be against them, no matter what they try.
Meera is the heroine we deserve - not falling into any patriarchal trappings, determined to empower herself, not being determined by the man in her life, and most of all, realizing that she is powerful to begin with.
But the story feeds this to you with a side of funny and a main of crazy, so you find yourself laughing along with her, rather than feeling like you're being preached at.
The story never dissolves into anything sappy and does right by the MC as a strong woman in her own right, which is so rare in women's fiction. Also rare? The writing is more reminiscent of an Indian Bridget Jones with tongue-in-cheek humor and self-aware commentary, rather than the heavy, flowery language we come to expect in Indian books.
Meera is the heroine we deserve - not falling into any patriarchal trappings, determined to empower herself, not being determined by the man in her life, and most of all, realizing that she is powerful to begin with.
But the story feeds this to you with a side of funny and a main of crazy, so you find yourself laughing along with her, rather than feeling like you're being preached at.
The story never dissolves into anything sappy and does right by the MC as a strong woman in her own right, which is so rare in women's fiction. Also rare? The writing is more reminiscent of an Indian Bridget Jones with tongue-in-cheek humor and self-aware commentary, rather than the heavy, flowery language we come to expect in Indian books.
February 15, 2013
What I didn’t like about the book?
- You need to look good to attract a man? Come on who is more vain Men or women?
- You need to be a bitch to be successful?
- The protagonist sounds confused to me at places more than one. I mean you are hooking up with a guy to get back at your office colleague and willingly give away your virginity to him and still believe that you are playing the game cleverly? Come on!
- It is a typical chick lit
What I liked about the book?
- Fast pace
- Has all the necessary ingredients of a chick lit & makes no pretence of being literary fiction. The author is out to entertain you and does it well.
- The characters are lovable & relatable to some extent
- It is a typical chick lit. Hehehehe ya being a typical chick lit is good n bad. Bad because you know the course which this book will run and good because you know this is for fun & there is a happy ending round the corner.
All in all a time pass book, do read it if you like chick lits and are looking for a time pass read.
- You need to look good to attract a man? Come on who is more vain Men or women?
- You need to be a bitch to be successful?
- The protagonist sounds confused to me at places more than one. I mean you are hooking up with a guy to get back at your office colleague and willingly give away your virginity to him and still believe that you are playing the game cleverly? Come on!
- It is a typical chick lit
What I liked about the book?
- Fast pace
- Has all the necessary ingredients of a chick lit & makes no pretence of being literary fiction. The author is out to entertain you and does it well.
- The characters are lovable & relatable to some extent
- It is a typical chick lit. Hehehehe ya being a typical chick lit is good n bad. Bad because you know the course which this book will run and good because you know this is for fun & there is a happy ending round the corner.
All in all a time pass book, do read it if you like chick lits and are looking for a time pass read.
April 3, 2013
Bitch Goddess for Dummies is definitely for dummies because I really cannot think of anyone learning or following any of the mindless rules the author is supposedly to have listed.
Coming to the point (there is no point!), the author starts of well with nice girl, Meera (Its a wonder i remember the name because all you keep reading is Bitch Goddess inside!) who decides to become the new bitch of the office and catch all the hot hunks. After the stereotypical makeover, there is nothing left to be done and to be read in this ridiculous book. What follows is a completely fantasy fairy tale ride with all the step sisters, hot physics professors, conniving dads, plotting moms of the world who drop in for a visit.
I would definitely recommend you not to waste time and money on such a book and pick up 'Why do men love bitches' or 'The Rules' because the last rule teaches you to just revert back to the nice girl mode!
Definitely not recommended!
January 18, 2013
You can read the full review here on my blog - Book Review: Bitch Goddess for Dummies by Maya Sharma Srirama
The book is a fast-paced read and I couldn’t keep it down once I started, I wanted to know all that happened to Mira. Sriram has mostly used simple language but there are some big words like ‘Solecism’ thrown in that made me reach out for the dictitionary. Not that am complaining
I loved the Bitch Goddess Rules that popped up in-between as I was reading the book. Also Mira’s new avatar made me smile big and wide everytime she whooped Sanya. I don’t have any complaints as such of the book. As a to-read-once-chick-lit it’s great.
The book is a fast-paced read and I couldn’t keep it down once I started, I wanted to know all that happened to Mira. Sriram has mostly used simple language but there are some big words like ‘Solecism’ thrown in that made me reach out for the dictitionary. Not that am complaining
I loved the Bitch Goddess Rules that popped up in-between as I was reading the book. Also Mira’s new avatar made me smile big and wide everytime she whooped Sanya. I don’t have any complaints as such of the book. As a to-read-once-chick-lit it’s great.
November 25, 2013
I disliked this book's message: that if you are a bit of a pushover, then one way to become someone better is to become a conniving, ruthless b****. I disliked this idea strongly. Also, the story itself was not that big and the characters were only slightly developed. It felt like a quick slice-of-life story. I would have given this book a 2 star rating, but like I said earlier, I strongly dislike how the concept played out in the book, and hence 1 star.
However, I liked how the author handled certain difficult situations, specifically . Perhaps a good book will come from this author, though I would check the premise in detail next time before starting.
However, I liked how the author handled certain difficult situations, specifically . Perhaps a good book will come from this author, though I would check the premise in detail next time before starting.
January 16, 2013
its fast read and easy flow...quite enjoyable....like a Bollywood film....bitches ties it all....
July 29, 2013
Quick easy read - decent humor
January 31, 2017
loved this book..(I am a very unimaginative person,so forgive me..long reviews are not my forte)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews