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Goddess Complex
From the author of Gold Diggers, a biting examination of millennial adulthood, the often fraught conversations around fertility and reproduction, and the painful quest to forge an identity
Sanjana Satyananda is trying to recover her life. It’s been a year since she walked out on her husband, a struggling actor named Killian, at a commune in India, after a disagreement about whether to have children. Now, Sanjana is struggling to resurrect her busted anthropology dissertation and crashing at her annoyingly perfect sister’s while her similarly well-adjusted peers obsess over marriages, mortgages, and motherhood. Sanjana needs to move forward—and finalize her divorce, ASAP.
There’s just one problem: Killian is missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she’s bombarded with unnerving calls from women seeking her advice on pregnancy and fertility. Soon, Sanjana comes face to face—literally—with what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. And the road not taken turns out to be wilder, stranger, and more tempting than she imagined.
A darkly funny, vertiginous novel about the dilemmas of procreation, pregnancy, and parenting, Goddess Complex is both a twist-filled psychological thriller and a feminist satire of our age of GirlBosses turned self-care influencers, optimization cults, internet mommy gurus, egg freezing, and so much more.
Sanjana Satyananda is trying to recover her life. It’s been a year since she walked out on her husband, a struggling actor named Killian, at a commune in India, after a disagreement about whether to have children. Now, Sanjana is struggling to resurrect her busted anthropology dissertation and crashing at her annoyingly perfect sister’s while her similarly well-adjusted peers obsess over marriages, mortgages, and motherhood. Sanjana needs to move forward—and finalize her divorce, ASAP.
There’s just one problem: Killian is missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she’s bombarded with unnerving calls from women seeking her advice on pregnancy and fertility. Soon, Sanjana comes face to face—literally—with what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. And the road not taken turns out to be wilder, stranger, and more tempting than she imagined.
A darkly funny, vertiginous novel about the dilemmas of procreation, pregnancy, and parenting, Goddess Complex is both a twist-filled psychological thriller and a feminist satire of our age of GirlBosses turned self-care influencers, optimization cults, internet mommy gurus, egg freezing, and so much more.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published March 11, 2025
95 people are currently reading
16416 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 289 reviews
December 21, 2024
Really enjoyed the first half of this, following Sanjana as she wanders through a tumultuous time in her life, with a kind of uncanny weirdness popping up over and over. But the second half, which I thought would crack the whole thing open, was sadly quite dull. It's very hard to talk about because they are almost two entirely different novels and not knowing what happens in the second part is critical to enjoying the first part.
But the second part, though on paper it sounds like there is a whole lot to sink your teeth into, ended up falling entirely flat. I didn't understand what the point was, I kept waiting for Sanjana to grapple with something or discover something but she just wanders through this part of the book, too. I expected some real consideration of the book's themes, of its questions of motherhood and fulfillment, but it all stayed very much on the surface.
It's strange, because if I were to describe the novel to you it would sound like Sathian is doing something very interesting, and there are elements that I found quite interesting. Her play with the author-as-character alone is worth attention. I noted in my review of Sathian's first novel, GOLD DIGGERS, how much I enjoyed its straightforward consideration of its themes. In some ways this novel is just as straightforward and yet in some ways it never really dives in at all, just dances around them.
But the second part, though on paper it sounds like there is a whole lot to sink your teeth into, ended up falling entirely flat. I didn't understand what the point was, I kept waiting for Sanjana to grapple with something or discover something but she just wanders through this part of the book, too. I expected some real consideration of the book's themes, of its questions of motherhood and fulfillment, but it all stayed very much on the surface.
It's strange, because if I were to describe the novel to you it would sound like Sathian is doing something very interesting, and there are elements that I found quite interesting. Her play with the author-as-character alone is worth attention. I noted in my review of Sathian's first novel, GOLD DIGGERS, how much I enjoyed its straightforward consideration of its themes. In some ways this novel is just as straightforward and yet in some ways it never really dives in at all, just dances around them.
August 10, 2025
Laugh out loud funny yet quite thoughtful at the same time!! Excited to discuss with lesbian feminist book club :)
March 23, 2025
A year after leaving her husband, Killian, Sanjana is trying to pick up the pieces of her life. She’s struggling to finish her PhD dissertation, casually dating a guy almost 10 years her junior, and watching as friends hit the traditional milestones of adulthood without her. She can’t even get her ex to sign the divorce papers because he lives on the other side of the world and has essentially ghosted her. So she’s shocked when she starts getting messages from unknown numbers and old acquaintances congratulating her on the child she and Killian are apparently expecting. Sanjana knows she’s not pregnant, so what is going on? Is it a cruel prank? An elaborate mixup? Or is there another version of herself out there, living a life she would never choose?
I loved this book. Sanjana is a messy, fun narrator who I would absolutely want to be friends with. The plot is so twisty and fun, and I was eagerly turning the pages, desperate to figure out what was going on. The satire is SO on point, exaggerated enough to be fun yet believable enough that the story still felt true to life. This book is so unique, and it’s definitely going to be one I nag all my friends to read!
I loved this book. Sanjana is a messy, fun narrator who I would absolutely want to be friends with. The plot is so twisty and fun, and I was eagerly turning the pages, desperate to figure out what was going on. The satire is SO on point, exaggerated enough to be fun yet believable enough that the story still felt true to life. This book is so unique, and it’s definitely going to be one I nag all my friends to read!
November 2, 2024
This is an excellent book about women's choice or not to become mothers. It's also about how women relate to one another around conception. It was a beautiful, fraught story with a freaking perfect ending.
Full review:
You can tell yourself whatever story you want to about yourself. p182
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. I love a good unlikable character, especially one that I connect with. I had ghosted him last summer, and we had not spoken in nearly a year. I was something between a wife and an ex-wife, between who I had been and who I would be next. p12
2. I adore that this main character, who shares the author's first name, eschews femininity as it relates to expected gender roles and behaviors. It's refreshing to read about a woman who is so direct about her imperatives.
3. For such a serious book, it has very funny moments! Sarcasm is this author's secret weapon. The last directive on our tour was a reminder that Moksha was an alcohol- and drug-free zone. There had been some Russians recently, and, well . . . p74
4. Anjana/ Ranjana was glowering at me in this way I remembered baby Naina looking at me, with alien obstinacy, a gaze not of pure discovery but of fury that the world was so befuddling. I was relieved to find myself moved. I was a woman who could hold a baby, halt a baby’s tears. p115 These moments of meaning the character collects, which allow her to grow, are sometimes deeply profound. the randomness it one of the best aspects of this narrative.
5. This book made me feel so many things. It wasn't like a Rollercoaster or a whirlwind, but something more elegant than that... I'm just saying, if you get mad while reading this book, just hang in there with it. It will surprise you more than once!
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. This will be an uncomfortable read for some readers who are inexperienced with racial or cultural discomfort.
2. The plot is a little soft but not so much that it's convoluted. It inches forward while also gyrating around its trajectory. The story is interesting, but it feels like it changes its mind often. *edit My description of this plot's shape was correct, but not my assessment of its strength. It's freaking brilliant. But it might catch you toward the end!
3. Did she just use "ironically" wrong? What is ironic about white teenage girls smoking cigarettes? I mean, I just don't get this, any ideas fellow readers?
4. This book is just packed with unscientific crap about women's periods, like syncing and chocolate cravings. She laid the groundwork for this, considering the characters' shared and mounting antiwestern sentiments. *edit The author ends up calling this out herself through the main character's arc.
5. The mother worship in the second half of this book is nauseating. I wonder how these characters would treat a woman who was infertile, childless, and past childbearing age? Possibly as invisibly as the fmc considered herself in the book's first half? *edit The author ends up balancing this out by the end of the book: “Motherhood isn’t, like, noble,” she said. “It’s really undignified. And I’m so anxious, all the time. I see death everywhere. Ways Luc could die, or Gor could die, or I could die...."
Rating: 🏔🏔🏔🏔🏔 /5 homes in the thin air
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: Nov 1 '24
Format: Digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
🏙 contemporary fiction
👨👩👧👦 family stories, family drama
👭🏽 women's friendships
💇♀️ women's coming of age
👶🏻 women's choice to become mothers
🫄 conception and infertility
Thank you to the author Sanjena Sathian, publishers Penguin Books, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of GODDESS COMPLEX. All views are mine.
Full review:
You can tell yourself whatever story you want to about yourself. p182
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. I love a good unlikable character, especially one that I connect with. I had ghosted him last summer, and we had not spoken in nearly a year. I was something between a wife and an ex-wife, between who I had been and who I would be next. p12
2. I adore that this main character, who shares the author's first name, eschews femininity as it relates to expected gender roles and behaviors. It's refreshing to read about a woman who is so direct about her imperatives.
3. For such a serious book, it has very funny moments! Sarcasm is this author's secret weapon. The last directive on our tour was a reminder that Moksha was an alcohol- and drug-free zone. There had been some Russians recently, and, well . . . p74
4. Anjana/ Ranjana was glowering at me in this way I remembered baby Naina looking at me, with alien obstinacy, a gaze not of pure discovery but of fury that the world was so befuddling. I was relieved to find myself moved. I was a woman who could hold a baby, halt a baby’s tears. p115 These moments of meaning the character collects, which allow her to grow, are sometimes deeply profound. the randomness it one of the best aspects of this narrative.
5. This book made me feel so many things. It wasn't like a Rollercoaster or a whirlwind, but something more elegant than that... I'm just saying, if you get mad while reading this book, just hang in there with it. It will surprise you more than once!
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. This will be an uncomfortable read for some readers who are inexperienced with racial or cultural discomfort.
2. The plot is a little soft but not so much that it's convoluted. It inches forward while also gyrating around its trajectory. The story is interesting, but it feels like it changes its mind often. *edit My description of this plot's shape was correct, but not my assessment of its strength. It's freaking brilliant. But it might catch you toward the end!
3. Did she just use "ironically" wrong? What is ironic about white teenage girls smoking cigarettes? I mean, I just don't get this, any ideas fellow readers?
4. This book is just packed with unscientific crap about women's periods, like syncing and chocolate cravings. She laid the groundwork for this, considering the characters' shared and mounting antiwestern sentiments. *edit The author ends up calling this out herself through the main character's arc.
5. The mother worship in the second half of this book is nauseating. I wonder how these characters would treat a woman who was infertile, childless, and past childbearing age? Possibly as invisibly as the fmc considered herself in the book's first half? *edit The author ends up balancing this out by the end of the book: “Motherhood isn’t, like, noble,” she said. “It’s really undignified. And I’m so anxious, all the time. I see death everywhere. Ways Luc could die, or Gor could die, or I could die...."
Rating: 🏔🏔🏔🏔🏔 /5 homes in the thin air
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: Nov 1 '24
Format: Digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
🏙 contemporary fiction
👨👩👧👦 family stories, family drama
👭🏽 women's friendships
💇♀️ women's coming of age
👶🏻 women's choice to become mothers
🫄 conception and infertility
Thank you to the author Sanjena Sathian, publishers Penguin Books, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of GODDESS COMPLEX. All views are mine.
Want to read
March 13, 2025No bc whoever designed this cover needs a little smooch from my guardian angel
Read
July 24, 2025i'm not sure what to make of this, i liked it until i didnt
November 24, 2025
OH my god. What the hell happened halfway through this book? The first half I was into. Sanjana was refreshing as a woman in her 30's who left her husband after deciding they decided they couldn't align on the idea of having a child. Her: uninterested. Him: it's his life purpose. In the background, some weird coincidences are occurring where people are approaching Sanjana asking if she's pregnant and people saying they saw on Instagram that she was. Mysterious, but it was not an important part of the plot.
And then part II happens. Wow. One of the worst second halves of a book I've ever read. The uncanny vibes become the main story and this goes absolutely bananas and in a completely stupid, unprompted, even offensive way:
This started as some nice literary fiction about not choosing motherhood and turned into a zany mystery/thriller that made no sense.
1.5 stars.
And then part II happens. Wow. One of the worst second halves of a book I've ever read. The uncanny vibes become the main story and this goes absolutely bananas and in a completely stupid, unprompted, even offensive way:
This started as some nice literary fiction about not choosing motherhood and turned into a zany mystery/thriller that made no sense.
1.5 stars.
January 28, 2025
“I have no idea what it is like to create a new person, to hope you know them, only to find them filled with mysterious or even repugnant desires, to lose them to forces you disdain or fail to comprehend…I imagine that I have caused my mother tremendous pain. As I shut the door to my childhood home, I thought: If I could be another person, I would.”
Finished this trippy little book last night, which is part psychological thriller, part satire.
A woman leaves her husband after a disagreement over whether or not to have a child. A year later, ready to move on, she tries to contact him and initiate a divorce, only to find…he’s nowhere to be found.
Stranger still, she’s begun to receive weirder and weirder texts, forcing her to (quite literally) confront the life she could have had.
I’ve never read anything like this. It was funny one moment, anxiety inducing the next. It was relatable, unsettling, and completely bananas bonkers.
(Also, the cover?!)
Finished this trippy little book last night, which is part psychological thriller, part satire.
A woman leaves her husband after a disagreement over whether or not to have a child. A year later, ready to move on, she tries to contact him and initiate a divorce, only to find…he’s nowhere to be found.
Stranger still, she’s begun to receive weirder and weirder texts, forcing her to (quite literally) confront the life she could have had.
I’ve never read anything like this. It was funny one moment, anxiety inducing the next. It was relatable, unsettling, and completely bananas bonkers.
(Also, the cover?!)
January 7, 2025
I received a free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Two and a half stars.
I liked the beginning of this novel, which centers on protagonist Sanjana, a "messy," recently single woman who in some ways seems self-assured, as in her desires not to have children, but in other ways seems stunted and unable to become a full-fledged adult. The book becomes stranger as it progresses and Sanjana discovers that her ex is dating a somewhat more attractive (and possibly pregnant) doppelganger named Sanjena. (Note the similarity not only in the characters' names but to the author's own). From there, Sanjana tries to track down her ex to obtain a divorce and becomes enmeshed with Sanjena through this process.
From this point, I found the book bizarre and it didn't read like a thriller, although there are some strange and slightly chilling plot points, to be sure. I saw it through to the end and while Sanjana does evolve, I didn't feel invested in her story or its conclusion.
Two and a half stars.
I liked the beginning of this novel, which centers on protagonist Sanjana, a "messy," recently single woman who in some ways seems self-assured, as in her desires not to have children, but in other ways seems stunted and unable to become a full-fledged adult. The book becomes stranger as it progresses and Sanjana discovers that her ex is dating a somewhat more attractive (and possibly pregnant) doppelganger named Sanjena. (Note the similarity not only in the characters' names but to the author's own). From there, Sanjana tries to track down her ex to obtain a divorce and becomes enmeshed with Sanjena through this process.
From this point, I found the book bizarre and it didn't read like a thriller, although there are some strange and slightly chilling plot points, to be sure. I saw it through to the end and while Sanjana does evolve, I didn't feel invested in her story or its conclusion.
October 24, 2024
Whew. This was a truly wild journey through the world of pregnancies, cults, drugs, and traumatic brain injuries. When 39 year old Sanjana comes home from a year long stint in Bombay researching an old religous figure, she is forced to confront everything she ran away from - a failed PhD, strained family relations, a failed marriage, and above all, her own fertility. She starts to get messages from...herself? And thus begins an unravelling and reckoning with what it means to be a modern woman. This book is both hilarious and equally disturbing, resonating with the double consciousness of what it means to be a modern woman. I could not put it down! Highly highly recommend.
March 28, 2025
Sanjena Sathian's sophomore novel "Goddess Complex" takes readers on a disorienting journey through the labyrinth of modern womanhood, fertility anxiety, and the high-stakes business of reproductive technology. Following her acclaimed debut "Gold Diggers," Sathian returns with a narrative that skillfully blends psychological thriller with dark satire, creating a fever dream of doubling and self-discovery that feels both timely and unsettlingly prescient.
At its core, this is a novel about choices—specifically, the fraught decisions surrounding motherhood—and the ways those choices can haunt and define us. But Sathian elevates what could be a straightforward exploration of reproductive autonomy into a hallucinatory gothic tale that will leave readers questioning their own perceptions until the very last page.
An Anthropologist Adrift in a Sea of Expectations
Our narrator Sanjana Satyananda finds herself in limbo—a 32-year-old anthropology PhD candidate on medical leave from Yale, separated from her actor husband Killian Bane after rejecting his sudden fervor for parenthood. While her peers advance through the prescribed milestones of adulthood—marriage, mortgage, motherhood—Sanjana remains stubbornly undefined, a condition both liberating and isolating.
When strange text messages begin arriving from unknown numbers congratulating her on a pregnancy that doesn't exist, Sanjana's quest to finalize her divorce from the ghosting Killian leads her to a fertility retreat in India run by her uncanny doppelgänger: Sanjena Sathian, a self-proclaimed "pregnancy influencer" who has seemingly usurped Sanjana's identity and possibly her husband. What follows is a mind-bending exploration of identity and desire that defies easy categorization.
Sathian demonstrates remarkable control over her narrative, which grows increasingly surreal as Sanjana falls deeper under the influence of her double's "mirroring" therapy. The lines between reality and delusion blur as Sanjana confronts not just her own ambivalence about motherhood but the very nature of selfhood.
Standout Literary Elements
Unnerving Psychological Depth
The novel's most significant achievement is its portrayal of Sanjana's shifting consciousness as she recovers from a concussion at the "God Complex" retreat. Sathian masterfully captures the disconcerting sensation of watching oneself be remade from the inside:
"I somnambulated through those days, time occasionally punctuated by an awareness of the outside world... I remember an awareness that my life was branching in two directions. I remember acknowledging that I could leave. Then Sunny turned to me, calling my name, a little bell of welcome ringing in her voice: 'Sanjana, aren't you coming?' and I trailed after her in the waning daylight, overtaken by a vision of my many possible selves assembled like dryads in the phosphorescent green forests."
The prose here achieves a hypnotic quality that immerses readers in Sanjana's dissociative state. We never quite know what's real and what's hallucination—a disorientation that mirrors the protagonist's own confusion.
Sharp Social Satire
Despite its psychological intensity, "Goddess Complex" maintains a biting sense of humor, particularly in its skewering of contemporary wellness culture and fertility entrepreneurship. The compound's "womb regression" room and color-coded wristbands (blue for "receivers," pink for "helpers") offer a sardonic take on how capitalism has colonized even our most intimate biological processes.
Sathian is equally incisive in her portrayal of performative feminism and the commodification of female solidarity. When Sanjana's friend Lia hosts a baby shower filled with "angel eggs" (deviled eggs adorned with marshmallow angels) and "onesie decoration," the scene becomes a pitch-perfect satire of the infantilizing rituals that surround pregnancy.
Cultural Identity and Belonging
Though less explicitly focused on Indian American identity than "Gold Diggers," this novel explores the particular pressures placed on South Asian women regarding marriage and reproduction. Sanjana's strained relationship with her mother reveals generational divides about duty and fulfillment, while the commodification of ethnically "matched" egg donors adds another layer to the novel's examination of identity.
Strengths and Weaknesses
What Works Brilliantly
1. Atmospheric tension: The God Complex retreat becomes increasingly claustrophobic as Sanjana loses grip on her autonomy.
2. Thematic depth: Sathian explores reproductive choice without simplified political positioning.
3. Character dynamics: The relationship between Sanjana and her doppelgänger Sunny evolves with disturbing complexity.
4. Cultural commentary: Sharp observations about wellness influencers, fertility anxiety, and the commercialization of reproductive technology.
5. Prose style: Lyrical yet propulsive writing that shifts seamlessly between psychological realism and dreamlike surrealism.
Where It Occasionally Falters
1. Resolution: The novel's ending, while thematically appropriate, may feel abrupt to readers seeking more concrete closure.
2. Secondary characters: Some supporting players, particularly in the retreat setting, remain somewhat underdeveloped.
3. Plot mechanics: Certain coincidences strain credibility, even in a narrative that intentionally blurs reality.
4. Pacing: The middle section occasionally feels repetitive as Sanjana cycles through similar revelations.
Final Assessment
"Goddess Complex" is a disquieting, thought-provoking novel that lingers in the mind long after reading. Sathian has crafted a narrative that feels simultaneously timely and timeless—addressing contemporary anxieties around reproduction while tapping into ancient fears about doubling and self-loss.
Though occasionally uneven in its execution, the novel's ambition and psychological insight make it a significant contribution to contemporary literature. It asks difficult questions without offering easy answers: What defines us when traditional markers of womanhood are rejected? How do we reconcile biological potentiality with personal choice? Where is the line between empathy and identity theft?
Most powerfully, "Goddess Complex" captures the peculiar terror of confronting alternate versions of oneself—the lives not lived, the choices not made, the selves we might have become. As Sanjana reflects near the novel's end:
"I pictured myself banging my head against the rock until I knocked myself out. I could not be trusted with myself. 'I want to be someone else,' I said. 'No. Not someone else. A better you,' Sunny said."
This tension—between transformation and authenticity, between potential and actuality—forms the beating heart of a novel that defies easy categorization but rewards careful reading. In Sathian's hands, the goddess complex becomes not just a satirical jab at fertility entrepreneurship but a profound meditation on female agency in a world still struggling to separate womanhood from motherhood.
At its core, this is a novel about choices—specifically, the fraught decisions surrounding motherhood—and the ways those choices can haunt and define us. But Sathian elevates what could be a straightforward exploration of reproductive autonomy into a hallucinatory gothic tale that will leave readers questioning their own perceptions until the very last page.
An Anthropologist Adrift in a Sea of Expectations
Our narrator Sanjana Satyananda finds herself in limbo—a 32-year-old anthropology PhD candidate on medical leave from Yale, separated from her actor husband Killian Bane after rejecting his sudden fervor for parenthood. While her peers advance through the prescribed milestones of adulthood—marriage, mortgage, motherhood—Sanjana remains stubbornly undefined, a condition both liberating and isolating.
When strange text messages begin arriving from unknown numbers congratulating her on a pregnancy that doesn't exist, Sanjana's quest to finalize her divorce from the ghosting Killian leads her to a fertility retreat in India run by her uncanny doppelgänger: Sanjena Sathian, a self-proclaimed "pregnancy influencer" who has seemingly usurped Sanjana's identity and possibly her husband. What follows is a mind-bending exploration of identity and desire that defies easy categorization.
Sathian demonstrates remarkable control over her narrative, which grows increasingly surreal as Sanjana falls deeper under the influence of her double's "mirroring" therapy. The lines between reality and delusion blur as Sanjana confronts not just her own ambivalence about motherhood but the very nature of selfhood.
Standout Literary Elements
Unnerving Psychological Depth
The novel's most significant achievement is its portrayal of Sanjana's shifting consciousness as she recovers from a concussion at the "God Complex" retreat. Sathian masterfully captures the disconcerting sensation of watching oneself be remade from the inside:
"I somnambulated through those days, time occasionally punctuated by an awareness of the outside world... I remember an awareness that my life was branching in two directions. I remember acknowledging that I could leave. Then Sunny turned to me, calling my name, a little bell of welcome ringing in her voice: 'Sanjana, aren't you coming?' and I trailed after her in the waning daylight, overtaken by a vision of my many possible selves assembled like dryads in the phosphorescent green forests."
The prose here achieves a hypnotic quality that immerses readers in Sanjana's dissociative state. We never quite know what's real and what's hallucination—a disorientation that mirrors the protagonist's own confusion.
Sharp Social Satire
Despite its psychological intensity, "Goddess Complex" maintains a biting sense of humor, particularly in its skewering of contemporary wellness culture and fertility entrepreneurship. The compound's "womb regression" room and color-coded wristbands (blue for "receivers," pink for "helpers") offer a sardonic take on how capitalism has colonized even our most intimate biological processes.
Sathian is equally incisive in her portrayal of performative feminism and the commodification of female solidarity. When Sanjana's friend Lia hosts a baby shower filled with "angel eggs" (deviled eggs adorned with marshmallow angels) and "onesie decoration," the scene becomes a pitch-perfect satire of the infantilizing rituals that surround pregnancy.
Cultural Identity and Belonging
Though less explicitly focused on Indian American identity than "Gold Diggers," this novel explores the particular pressures placed on South Asian women regarding marriage and reproduction. Sanjana's strained relationship with her mother reveals generational divides about duty and fulfillment, while the commodification of ethnically "matched" egg donors adds another layer to the novel's examination of identity.
Strengths and Weaknesses
What Works Brilliantly
1. Atmospheric tension: The God Complex retreat becomes increasingly claustrophobic as Sanjana loses grip on her autonomy.
2. Thematic depth: Sathian explores reproductive choice without simplified political positioning.
3. Character dynamics: The relationship between Sanjana and her doppelgänger Sunny evolves with disturbing complexity.
4. Cultural commentary: Sharp observations about wellness influencers, fertility anxiety, and the commercialization of reproductive technology.
5. Prose style: Lyrical yet propulsive writing that shifts seamlessly between psychological realism and dreamlike surrealism.
Where It Occasionally Falters
1. Resolution: The novel's ending, while thematically appropriate, may feel abrupt to readers seeking more concrete closure.
2. Secondary characters: Some supporting players, particularly in the retreat setting, remain somewhat underdeveloped.
3. Plot mechanics: Certain coincidences strain credibility, even in a narrative that intentionally blurs reality.
4. Pacing: The middle section occasionally feels repetitive as Sanjana cycles through similar revelations.
Final Assessment
"Goddess Complex" is a disquieting, thought-provoking novel that lingers in the mind long after reading. Sathian has crafted a narrative that feels simultaneously timely and timeless—addressing contemporary anxieties around reproduction while tapping into ancient fears about doubling and self-loss.
Though occasionally uneven in its execution, the novel's ambition and psychological insight make it a significant contribution to contemporary literature. It asks difficult questions without offering easy answers: What defines us when traditional markers of womanhood are rejected? How do we reconcile biological potentiality with personal choice? Where is the line between empathy and identity theft?
Most powerfully, "Goddess Complex" captures the peculiar terror of confronting alternate versions of oneself—the lives not lived, the choices not made, the selves we might have become. As Sanjana reflects near the novel's end:
"I pictured myself banging my head against the rock until I knocked myself out. I could not be trusted with myself. 'I want to be someone else,' I said. 'No. Not someone else. A better you,' Sunny said."
This tension—between transformation and authenticity, between potential and actuality—forms the beating heart of a novel that defies easy categorization but rewards careful reading. In Sathian's hands, the goddess complex becomes not just a satirical jab at fertility entrepreneurship but a profound meditation on female agency in a world still struggling to separate womanhood from motherhood.
April 27, 2025
interesting and unexpected plot line exploring society’s expectations on motherhood- what men expect from you and how other women expect you to act. gets a little freaky towards the 2/3 mark which definitely kept me reading, but also was a little bit confusing.
however i found the narrator insufferable and too one dimensional - for being that old, she lacked manners?? and was too childish for it to be believable imo.
made me realize that stylistically, i haven’t really ever consumed absurd or satirical storytelling from a desi pov (like i don’t watch abstract hindi movies, i watch romances with good dancing and i’ve read probs less than 10 books written by indian authors, most of them being memoirs or fiction based on the indian-american experience). so definitely want to keep reading more
however i found the narrator insufferable and too one dimensional - for being that old, she lacked manners?? and was too childish for it to be believable imo.
made me realize that stylistically, i haven’t really ever consumed absurd or satirical storytelling from a desi pov (like i don’t watch abstract hindi movies, i watch romances with good dancing and i’ve read probs less than 10 books written by indian authors, most of them being memoirs or fiction based on the indian-american experience). so definitely want to keep reading more
August 12, 2025
god i am absolutely obsessed with this book. another book club read that i wouldn’t have picked up on my own, but am so glad i read. thought this was going to be a pretty standard lit fic read but this book was an absolute rollercoaster, especially part two. there is so much to unpack in this, definitely a book i would love to buy and physically annotate and re-read. can’t wait to discuss in book club and hear everyone else’s thoughts!!
identity
- a desire for identity, to know who you are. the tension in both wanting to be yourself but wanting to be somebody else/hating yourself (not wanting to compromise herself for what her family wants/what society expects but also disliking herself, not recognising herself)
- not recognising/liking yourself - i thought for a while sunny was actually her and she didn’t recognise herself (e.g., when seeing the picture at the start) and that represented her whole lack of identity, just how much she didn’t recognise/like herself which would have been an interesting narrative
- “I was in a hurry, when I met him, to become myself. I had been waiting my whole life for my life to begin. He had helped me become me. But I never knew that you could accidentally become the wrong version of you, that you might one day have to escape yourself."
- “I didn’t do any of that. I just lurked, mourning the person I might have become had I chosen a different job, a different partner, a different pattern of behaviors over the past thirty-two years. I might own a house like this, or like the ones I jerked off to on Zillow. I might have been happy. I might not have been myself, but that would have been no real loss, as I did not particularly like being myself.”
- “Did some part of you want to be caught?” She tented her fingertips below her chin. “To be seen as you were, instead of as they wished you to be?”
- “I was feeling better—and this concerned me. I had begun to fear reverting to who I’d been. I feared being possessed, once more, by whatever me had slammed my head over and over into a rock.”
- “When I met him, you must understand, I was desperate.” “For love?” I asked. “For the life I wanted for myself,” she said. “I was in a hurry for everything to fall into place. I had been waiting. For so long. To finally become who I was meant to be.”
- “I smiled back, my mouth moving without me, and for the next few days, I tried to keep my face that way. It was unnatural, at first, like I was imitating someone, and then my expression changed more permanently into one of relatively unthinking cheer. That was how things worked at the Shakti Center, I learned. You pretended for a while until you became what, or who, you’d imagined yourself to be.”
motherhood and the pressure of heteronormative timelines
- “The pregnancy had transformed what had once been my ambivalence about childbearing into a certainty. I could only think: I do not want it in me; I cannot be split.”
- “If I coveted anything about her life, it was the glow of comprehensibility that surrounded her. Once, I, too, had made sense, but of late, I was becoming less defined. I seemed to have abdicated my birthright citizenship to the nation of marriage and mortgage and motherhood, and beyond its borders lay uncharted terrain. I did mourn something after the procedure…Rather, I grieved the loss of a version of me who was more fathomable to the world.”
- “But I feared that everyone I knew had suddenly inherited a capacity for love that I lacked, and I was certain they believed that I was missing out on the Fundamental Mystery of Humankind. So, I kept my choice to myself.”
- “My nebulous feelings about my abortion could not fit tidily into a box on a form. Neither were they a spiritual scar. They were just slippery and strange and every time I said the word abortion, I felt clumsy, like I was laying claim to something heroic and vital that didn’t belong to me.”
- “It was curious to inhabit Maneesha’s life, which seemed so comfortable from afar. I saw now the extreme machinations required to maintain that comfort.”
- “I might not be who you’d entrust with diaper changes, but I loved Naina in my own awkward, distant way—a way men have always been allowed to love. ”
- “Perhaps it ran both ways; perhaps mothers and daughters were doomed to look at each other this way, not as people but as foreclosed selves. I finished my drink uneasily. The chai was sour and cold and I felt tremendously sad. I had failed to translate myself, failed in turn to hear her, and now it was all over, and the silence of that locked room at my grandfather’s funeral would descend once more, possibly forever.”
- “I was relieved to find myself moved. I was a woman who could hold a baby, halt a baby’s tears.”
- “Everyone—even Lia and Gor—knew there was something wrong with the way the world was set up. But they were so inside it that the only reinvention they could perform was to ask me to join their “village,” a village conveniently located on the ninth floor of a doormanned condo building”
- “I recalled all those women who told me that they had been transmuted, from the inside out, in a manner that defied language, how they had nearly drowned in the overpowering waves of their desire. When I was pregnant, I had waited to be changed. I was waiting for G. Waiting and waiting for purpose to set in. My whole life, I had been waiting for my life to begin.”
- “How the losses amassed. I remembered tumbling into her social media posts and discovering the vocabulary of her longing: rainbow babies and baby dust. Next to the frigid language of these forms—recurrent pregnancy loss and unexplained infertility and menorrhagia and premature ovarian failure and blighted ovum—all those new words made sense; I understood why one would craft another language, when the standard one talked about you this way.”
- “I don’t know if I have the imaginative capacity to make a life for a whole other human being. It takes so much for me to picture my own life. Your imagination might be…bigger than mine. In some ways. I never even thought of the idea that you could talk to a kid about sex without making it seem awful.”
- the idea of people wanting other kids to solve their problems: “We had problems, and he believed we believed could solve them all with the creation of another human being. It struck me as irresponsible.”; “They were only ever with themselves, and their inner lives. That was the point: they had to create for themselves now.”
- how the spinster/childless woman is portrayed - by society, by others around them, by self - being inherently villainous; “I am an anthropologist, so I know: spinsters make good demons. We infiltrate the bodies and minds of the happily married, sowing discord. We steal babies, kill babies, eat babies. You have to banish us.”
choice (or the lack thereof), trust, and regret
- such a recurring theme of women being taught that they can’t trust themselves/their thoughts and desires, that they will later regret the choices they make. and comparing this with the idea that a) so many of women’s choices aren’t actually choices (as sanjana reflects in a conversation with killian) and/or, as she realises at the end, it is unavoidable to live without regret and there’s no point living your life worrying about if you’ll later regret your choices now. that acceptance of trusting self and choices you make. like not only having empathy for other woman but having empathy for past you and the choices you did make/couldnt make based on what was available to you at the time etc
- again, the parallels with fleabag: the confession scene - tell me who to be/what to do. we are taught not to be able to trust our self so we just follow what society wants us to do etc. ““biological, historical destiny, subsuming me; the relief of being told what I was for.”
- “It was violating, being told that one day I would wake up, transformed overnight like Gregor Samsa into a Santana who wanted something the Sanjana of today could not imagine wanting. A mother was in me, just waiting to burst out.”
- “I had always thought this explanation was wrong: my mother did not make choices; life happened to her, and she lived it, and I suspected Mary felt the same way.”
- “I still understood the appeal of not having to decide my whole future now, of lingering in bothness, not opening the lid to see whether those Schrödinger’s eggs were good or rotted, in case I one day wanted them. But I didn’t like the idea of living my life apocalyptically, prepping for every version of me. I didn’t want to feel like I was waiting—for G, for some other Sanjana to appear. Perhaps Sunny was right, and one day I would regret my choices. But I was starting to suspect that there was no way to avoid regret, that all you had to do was find a way to live with it.”
unreliable narrators and empathy
- a lot left not entirely certain. who is telling the truth. does it matter? everyone makes up some degree of a story (killian’s mum about his dad, sunny, sanjena, did she hit her head or try to kill herself? who was pregnant or not?) - and perhaps the beauty is in that we can understand why they do this and all their different perspectives and reasons
- “I couldn’t help it: I was disappointed. It was so plain. She was not a guru. She was a finite woman, a product of a particular moment in history.”
- “He understood this part of Mary—the instinct to confabulate, the desire to spin a story that made your world more bearable, more impressive, to play a different role.”
- I find that she doesn’t think of sunny too badly in the end so interesting…. we read the book thinking sunny is the villain, but also is she really? or is she also a victim in this heteronormative society? a real emphasis that sathian had on recognising the experiences of different women, bridging divide between those who do and don’t want children. “She was the hysterical example who made them all look bad. I tried to convey to them that I did not think Sunny was foolish, nor did I find her desire grotesque. She was, as she wrote in her book, a person transformed by the miasma of need. The way she described yearning, and her lie itself—the fact that it did not feel like a lie, because she had lived versions of it so many times before—confirmed for me that even in her unreality, there had been something true. It was the role she had been born to play.”
- men being so unaware of how complex the decisions (or lack thereof) to have children/the process of pregnancy/childbirth etc is, the cost of this on women, how deeply women have to think about it, all the internal negotiations, why perhaps not a choice women make (again. linking to killian’s assumptions of it all being choices)
- the idea of sanjana having to protect herself from her husband/society who wants her to have kids. but opening up and gaining curiosity/understanding for women who do want to have children, understanding their experiences. recognising there is room for all perspectives etc. of course often these perspectives clash (e.g., is a foetus a person? aboriton rights) but important but important to recognise all women’s experiences and can hold space for all (maggie nelson: not a choice or a child - choice and a child)
family and mother/daughter relationships
- “I guess in theory, I’d like to get along with [my family], but in practice, I don’t want to have to make concessions to be the kind of person who they would get along with.”
- “I did not believe that I was encountering an impostor in my mother’s skin. Rather, I experienced a sharpening of perception. She was not mine. She was just a person, in her own right, who did not owe me her body or her shelter.”
- “My only point is that I do not take my whole identity from you two. I did my duty then with you… It would have been very bad if you and Maneesha were the center of my world. You have gone off, now. What would I be left with, half of myself only? That is how these stupid women lose themselves….“I think that’s what made you a good mom. You kept your whole self.” The great contradiction: I meant what I’d said, but sometimes I wished she could have given in.” !! the importance of recognising mothers as full people but also the tensions of this. the desires as the daughter to want your mum to be the picture perfect mum etc
- “I could be a mother. And I wonder if that would make me understand you and if it would make you understand me. I keep picturing you showing up to help.”
- “It ended there. I knew what I’d been thinking of when I wrote it—the way, when I was a teenager and we fought, my mother used to shout: You’ll understand me one day, when you have a daughter, when she gives you hell. Perhaps I was doomed, now, to never understand her. Perhaps I had chosen not to understand.”
other relationships between women
- “I came to especially crave Sunny’s touch at the end of those mirroring sessions, when she brushed my head, my back, the pressure points on my feet. Her gestures made me think of childhood sleepovers. My favorite part always came when those circles of girls stroked my shoulders and French braided my hair and intoned, Crack an egg on your head, let the yolk run down, and ran their hands along my scalp and spine, raising little goose bumps along my skin. More than once I’d lain awake after having an “egg” cracked on my head, feeling I was attracted to some of those girls individually, but even more, I was lusty for the collective, the mass, the way their voices chorused together so you couldn’t distinguish one from another. I wanted my limbs and hair tangled in theirs. I wanted to feel the brush of their fingertips, to be enraptured in the cocoon of their attention”
- lia and sanjana’s friendship - lia letting her come back when kicked out by her sister, going to see lia once she had her kid. making the husband babysit and taking her out.
- really liked this scene - and that idea that she’d been looking for these positive relationships with women, and maybe didnt quite get that with the cult lol but lots of positive relationships even in the little moments already exist: “I had forgotten this ritual of the women’s car. Together we were pulled to the open doorway, and as the train slowed, some people began to take the stop at a run. I waited. I felt a hand on my lower back, giving me a shove. Someone was trying to make sure I didn’t miss my station. It was not violent. It was the kindness of anonymity, a belonging that asks for nothing in return. The world was waiting.”
culture, diaspora, and immigration
- a few interesting ideas from listening to sathian in interviews
- south east asian cultures often being collectivist results in an erasure of the individual, especially to women who are expected to be bearers of traditional values and carry these traditions from mainland to diaspora, bear much heavier burdens/expectations on conforming to heteronormativity - marriage, babies etc.
- but reflecting on the importance of nuance in seemingly monolothic experiences: her mum being supportive of her not wanting kids; she had a strong identity outside of motherhood, came to america not just for a better life for her children but for herself; wanting to be more than just a mother
- reverse migration, indian americans in america v india, expat v immigrant, how does this impact your sense of self? feeling out of place/a foreigner everywhere
- something i don’t fully understand atm but the idea that the diaspora in US engineered to be monolithic 1970s conservative india - sathian then as an adult discovered much more complex india that parents didn’t know existed
other thoughts
- someone in book club raised the parallels w fleabag which i now can’t unsee! - yelling abortion/miscarriage, sister relationships, masturbating to obama/zillow….
- not read other doppelgänger books which is perhaps partly why i found this so interesting bc was very unique/novel to me?? a lot of stuff about doppelgängers i’d need to read more. doppelgangers threatens sense of self. but also what if this other version of me is better? (which comes up a lot - the assumption from many of the characters that they could live sanjana’s life better than her) the two frida’s painting reflecting the cover of the book. the two naomi’s lol
- the choice of auto/meta fiction but also subverting this. asking reader to assume extra level of intimacy by using her name for one of the characters. but also making the second half so wild you know its not about her/couldn’t possibly be true
- recognising the importance of reproductive justice v choice - repdocutive choice being critiqued as not nuanced/expanisve enough - about more than just having a right to say no/not have kids, but about having the right to choose to have kids also - especially for black/woc/disabled people etc who often experience/d forced sterilisation, child removal, over judgement and policing etc.
- something else raised in book club: the idea of a lot of emphasis on children/reproduction but only really one child character in the book. thinking about how this relates to the idea also discussed about how adults often speak of having children as a means to serve them, give them a sense of purpose etc., not knowing if you want kids but just doing it because you feel like you should/hope the desire to will come later
- biological v social infertility
- being a coming of age story even though the characters are in their 30s
- disability perspective: sunny’s desire for a body that ‘works’ to have kids
- portrayal of therapists throughout the book - someone in bookclub pointed out that therapists are often portrayed as reflexive beings rather than human beings/characters in their own right in books. would need to think of that more deeply with this book but thought it was really interesting and made me think a bit more about the different therapists in this book - in the first half where they want to assume it is her identity/culture that is the problem etc, the therapist at the end that dismisses a lot of western medicine….
some foreshadowing/key themes
- “ I was something between a wife and an ex-wife, between who I had been and who I would be next.”
- “I ache to examine another person so closely that I tumble through the film of identity separating us to be devoured by them.”
interviews i listened to
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast...
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy30c...
identity
- a desire for identity, to know who you are. the tension in both wanting to be yourself but wanting to be somebody else/hating yourself (not wanting to compromise herself for what her family wants/what society expects but also disliking herself, not recognising herself)
- not recognising/liking yourself - i thought for a while sunny was actually her and she didn’t recognise herself (e.g., when seeing the picture at the start) and that represented her whole lack of identity, just how much she didn’t recognise/like herself which would have been an interesting narrative
- “I was in a hurry, when I met him, to become myself. I had been waiting my whole life for my life to begin. He had helped me become me. But I never knew that you could accidentally become the wrong version of you, that you might one day have to escape yourself."
- “I didn’t do any of that. I just lurked, mourning the person I might have become had I chosen a different job, a different partner, a different pattern of behaviors over the past thirty-two years. I might own a house like this, or like the ones I jerked off to on Zillow. I might have been happy. I might not have been myself, but that would have been no real loss, as I did not particularly like being myself.”
- “Did some part of you want to be caught?” She tented her fingertips below her chin. “To be seen as you were, instead of as they wished you to be?”
- “I was feeling better—and this concerned me. I had begun to fear reverting to who I’d been. I feared being possessed, once more, by whatever me had slammed my head over and over into a rock.”
- “When I met him, you must understand, I was desperate.” “For love?” I asked. “For the life I wanted for myself,” she said. “I was in a hurry for everything to fall into place. I had been waiting. For so long. To finally become who I was meant to be.”
- “I smiled back, my mouth moving without me, and for the next few days, I tried to keep my face that way. It was unnatural, at first, like I was imitating someone, and then my expression changed more permanently into one of relatively unthinking cheer. That was how things worked at the Shakti Center, I learned. You pretended for a while until you became what, or who, you’d imagined yourself to be.”
motherhood and the pressure of heteronormative timelines
- “The pregnancy had transformed what had once been my ambivalence about childbearing into a certainty. I could only think: I do not want it in me; I cannot be split.”
- “If I coveted anything about her life, it was the glow of comprehensibility that surrounded her. Once, I, too, had made sense, but of late, I was becoming less defined. I seemed to have abdicated my birthright citizenship to the nation of marriage and mortgage and motherhood, and beyond its borders lay uncharted terrain. I did mourn something after the procedure…Rather, I grieved the loss of a version of me who was more fathomable to the world.”
- “But I feared that everyone I knew had suddenly inherited a capacity for love that I lacked, and I was certain they believed that I was missing out on the Fundamental Mystery of Humankind. So, I kept my choice to myself.”
- “My nebulous feelings about my abortion could not fit tidily into a box on a form. Neither were they a spiritual scar. They were just slippery and strange and every time I said the word abortion, I felt clumsy, like I was laying claim to something heroic and vital that didn’t belong to me.”
- “It was curious to inhabit Maneesha’s life, which seemed so comfortable from afar. I saw now the extreme machinations required to maintain that comfort.”
- “I might not be who you’d entrust with diaper changes, but I loved Naina in my own awkward, distant way—a way men have always been allowed to love. ”
- “Perhaps it ran both ways; perhaps mothers and daughters were doomed to look at each other this way, not as people but as foreclosed selves. I finished my drink uneasily. The chai was sour and cold and I felt tremendously sad. I had failed to translate myself, failed in turn to hear her, and now it was all over, and the silence of that locked room at my grandfather’s funeral would descend once more, possibly forever.”
- “I was relieved to find myself moved. I was a woman who could hold a baby, halt a baby’s tears.”
- “Everyone—even Lia and Gor—knew there was something wrong with the way the world was set up. But they were so inside it that the only reinvention they could perform was to ask me to join their “village,” a village conveniently located on the ninth floor of a doormanned condo building”
- “I recalled all those women who told me that they had been transmuted, from the inside out, in a manner that defied language, how they had nearly drowned in the overpowering waves of their desire. When I was pregnant, I had waited to be changed. I was waiting for G. Waiting and waiting for purpose to set in. My whole life, I had been waiting for my life to begin.”
- “How the losses amassed. I remembered tumbling into her social media posts and discovering the vocabulary of her longing: rainbow babies and baby dust. Next to the frigid language of these forms—recurrent pregnancy loss and unexplained infertility and menorrhagia and premature ovarian failure and blighted ovum—all those new words made sense; I understood why one would craft another language, when the standard one talked about you this way.”
- “I don’t know if I have the imaginative capacity to make a life for a whole other human being. It takes so much for me to picture my own life. Your imagination might be…bigger than mine. In some ways. I never even thought of the idea that you could talk to a kid about sex without making it seem awful.”
- the idea of people wanting other kids to solve their problems: “We had problems, and he believed we believed could solve them all with the creation of another human being. It struck me as irresponsible.”; “They were only ever with themselves, and their inner lives. That was the point: they had to create for themselves now.”
- how the spinster/childless woman is portrayed - by society, by others around them, by self - being inherently villainous; “I am an anthropologist, so I know: spinsters make good demons. We infiltrate the bodies and minds of the happily married, sowing discord. We steal babies, kill babies, eat babies. You have to banish us.”
choice (or the lack thereof), trust, and regret
- such a recurring theme of women being taught that they can’t trust themselves/their thoughts and desires, that they will later regret the choices they make. and comparing this with the idea that a) so many of women’s choices aren’t actually choices (as sanjana reflects in a conversation with killian) and/or, as she realises at the end, it is unavoidable to live without regret and there’s no point living your life worrying about if you’ll later regret your choices now. that acceptance of trusting self and choices you make. like not only having empathy for other woman but having empathy for past you and the choices you did make/couldnt make based on what was available to you at the time etc
- again, the parallels with fleabag: the confession scene - tell me who to be/what to do. we are taught not to be able to trust our self so we just follow what society wants us to do etc. ““biological, historical destiny, subsuming me; the relief of being told what I was for.”
- “It was violating, being told that one day I would wake up, transformed overnight like Gregor Samsa into a Santana who wanted something the Sanjana of today could not imagine wanting. A mother was in me, just waiting to burst out.”
- “I had always thought this explanation was wrong: my mother did not make choices; life happened to her, and she lived it, and I suspected Mary felt the same way.”
- “I still understood the appeal of not having to decide my whole future now, of lingering in bothness, not opening the lid to see whether those Schrödinger’s eggs were good or rotted, in case I one day wanted them. But I didn’t like the idea of living my life apocalyptically, prepping for every version of me. I didn’t want to feel like I was waiting—for G, for some other Sanjana to appear. Perhaps Sunny was right, and one day I would regret my choices. But I was starting to suspect that there was no way to avoid regret, that all you had to do was find a way to live with it.”
unreliable narrators and empathy
- a lot left not entirely certain. who is telling the truth. does it matter? everyone makes up some degree of a story (killian’s mum about his dad, sunny, sanjena, did she hit her head or try to kill herself? who was pregnant or not?) - and perhaps the beauty is in that we can understand why they do this and all their different perspectives and reasons
- “I couldn’t help it: I was disappointed. It was so plain. She was not a guru. She was a finite woman, a product of a particular moment in history.”
- “He understood this part of Mary—the instinct to confabulate, the desire to spin a story that made your world more bearable, more impressive, to play a different role.”
- I find that she doesn’t think of sunny too badly in the end so interesting…. we read the book thinking sunny is the villain, but also is she really? or is she also a victim in this heteronormative society? a real emphasis that sathian had on recognising the experiences of different women, bridging divide between those who do and don’t want children. “She was the hysterical example who made them all look bad. I tried to convey to them that I did not think Sunny was foolish, nor did I find her desire grotesque. She was, as she wrote in her book, a person transformed by the miasma of need. The way she described yearning, and her lie itself—the fact that it did not feel like a lie, because she had lived versions of it so many times before—confirmed for me that even in her unreality, there had been something true. It was the role she had been born to play.”
- men being so unaware of how complex the decisions (or lack thereof) to have children/the process of pregnancy/childbirth etc is, the cost of this on women, how deeply women have to think about it, all the internal negotiations, why perhaps not a choice women make (again. linking to killian’s assumptions of it all being choices)
- the idea of sanjana having to protect herself from her husband/society who wants her to have kids. but opening up and gaining curiosity/understanding for women who do want to have children, understanding their experiences. recognising there is room for all perspectives etc. of course often these perspectives clash (e.g., is a foetus a person? aboriton rights) but important but important to recognise all women’s experiences and can hold space for all (maggie nelson: not a choice or a child - choice and a child)
family and mother/daughter relationships
- “I guess in theory, I’d like to get along with [my family], but in practice, I don’t want to have to make concessions to be the kind of person who they would get along with.”
- “I did not believe that I was encountering an impostor in my mother’s skin. Rather, I experienced a sharpening of perception. She was not mine. She was just a person, in her own right, who did not owe me her body or her shelter.”
- “My only point is that I do not take my whole identity from you two. I did my duty then with you… It would have been very bad if you and Maneesha were the center of my world. You have gone off, now. What would I be left with, half of myself only? That is how these stupid women lose themselves….“I think that’s what made you a good mom. You kept your whole self.” The great contradiction: I meant what I’d said, but sometimes I wished she could have given in.” !! the importance of recognising mothers as full people but also the tensions of this. the desires as the daughter to want your mum to be the picture perfect mum etc
- “I could be a mother. And I wonder if that would make me understand you and if it would make you understand me. I keep picturing you showing up to help.”
- “It ended there. I knew what I’d been thinking of when I wrote it—the way, when I was a teenager and we fought, my mother used to shout: You’ll understand me one day, when you have a daughter, when she gives you hell. Perhaps I was doomed, now, to never understand her. Perhaps I had chosen not to understand.”
other relationships between women
- “I came to especially crave Sunny’s touch at the end of those mirroring sessions, when she brushed my head, my back, the pressure points on my feet. Her gestures made me think of childhood sleepovers. My favorite part always came when those circles of girls stroked my shoulders and French braided my hair and intoned, Crack an egg on your head, let the yolk run down, and ran their hands along my scalp and spine, raising little goose bumps along my skin. More than once I’d lain awake after having an “egg” cracked on my head, feeling I was attracted to some of those girls individually, but even more, I was lusty for the collective, the mass, the way their voices chorused together so you couldn’t distinguish one from another. I wanted my limbs and hair tangled in theirs. I wanted to feel the brush of their fingertips, to be enraptured in the cocoon of their attention”
- lia and sanjana’s friendship - lia letting her come back when kicked out by her sister, going to see lia once she had her kid. making the husband babysit and taking her out.
- really liked this scene - and that idea that she’d been looking for these positive relationships with women, and maybe didnt quite get that with the cult lol but lots of positive relationships even in the little moments already exist: “I had forgotten this ritual of the women’s car. Together we were pulled to the open doorway, and as the train slowed, some people began to take the stop at a run. I waited. I felt a hand on my lower back, giving me a shove. Someone was trying to make sure I didn’t miss my station. It was not violent. It was the kindness of anonymity, a belonging that asks for nothing in return. The world was waiting.”
culture, diaspora, and immigration
- a few interesting ideas from listening to sathian in interviews
- south east asian cultures often being collectivist results in an erasure of the individual, especially to women who are expected to be bearers of traditional values and carry these traditions from mainland to diaspora, bear much heavier burdens/expectations on conforming to heteronormativity - marriage, babies etc.
- but reflecting on the importance of nuance in seemingly monolothic experiences: her mum being supportive of her not wanting kids; she had a strong identity outside of motherhood, came to america not just for a better life for her children but for herself; wanting to be more than just a mother
- reverse migration, indian americans in america v india, expat v immigrant, how does this impact your sense of self? feeling out of place/a foreigner everywhere
- something i don’t fully understand atm but the idea that the diaspora in US engineered to be monolithic 1970s conservative india - sathian then as an adult discovered much more complex india that parents didn’t know existed
other thoughts
- someone in book club raised the parallels w fleabag which i now can’t unsee! - yelling abortion/miscarriage, sister relationships, masturbating to obama/zillow….
- not read other doppelgänger books which is perhaps partly why i found this so interesting bc was very unique/novel to me?? a lot of stuff about doppelgängers i’d need to read more. doppelgangers threatens sense of self. but also what if this other version of me is better? (which comes up a lot - the assumption from many of the characters that they could live sanjana’s life better than her) the two frida’s painting reflecting the cover of the book. the two naomi’s lol
- the choice of auto/meta fiction but also subverting this. asking reader to assume extra level of intimacy by using her name for one of the characters. but also making the second half so wild you know its not about her/couldn’t possibly be true
- recognising the importance of reproductive justice v choice - repdocutive choice being critiqued as not nuanced/expanisve enough - about more than just having a right to say no/not have kids, but about having the right to choose to have kids also - especially for black/woc/disabled people etc who often experience/d forced sterilisation, child removal, over judgement and policing etc.
- something else raised in book club: the idea of a lot of emphasis on children/reproduction but only really one child character in the book. thinking about how this relates to the idea also discussed about how adults often speak of having children as a means to serve them, give them a sense of purpose etc., not knowing if you want kids but just doing it because you feel like you should/hope the desire to will come later
- biological v social infertility
- being a coming of age story even though the characters are in their 30s
- disability perspective: sunny’s desire for a body that ‘works’ to have kids
- portrayal of therapists throughout the book - someone in bookclub pointed out that therapists are often portrayed as reflexive beings rather than human beings/characters in their own right in books. would need to think of that more deeply with this book but thought it was really interesting and made me think a bit more about the different therapists in this book - in the first half where they want to assume it is her identity/culture that is the problem etc, the therapist at the end that dismisses a lot of western medicine….
some foreshadowing/key themes
- “ I was something between a wife and an ex-wife, between who I had been and who I would be next.”
- “I ache to examine another person so closely that I tumble through the film of identity separating us to be devoured by them.”
interviews i listened to
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast...
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy30c...
February 28, 2025
The complexity of existing as a parent, to be responsible for a tiny thing that requires all the attention and love one can provide, nurture and instill values to be a functional human in society - IS terrifying. I can understand that. The novel thus opens with someone whose ideas are adjacent to the norm but not with the hiccups an average thirty odd year old would come to.
The concept of motherhood and choosing not to, isn't easy to explain to many. It is where the narrator finds herself in, boxed into being "strange" by her mother and an "outsider" in her clan. Being in process of separating from her Irish-Indian husband and pursuing grad school in Anthropology, she struggles with changes in lives of her best friend who is now pregnant and settled into life of family, and seemingly new woman in her ex-husband's life.
I loved reading into first half of this novel. The struggle to belong, the search that's seemingly aimless and the platitudes she utters to cajole herself, are somewhat relatable. And then it goes wonky.
I couldn't understand the sudden shift in tone to somewhat thriller/mystery genre but not entirely embracing it and it derailed the conversation the first half of the book started.
Maybe this was two books; two parts of whole that thematically resembled but executed in widely different styles. As a part of coherent story, it didn't come through.
Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Press for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.
The concept of motherhood and choosing not to, isn't easy to explain to many. It is where the narrator finds herself in, boxed into being "strange" by her mother and an "outsider" in her clan. Being in process of separating from her Irish-Indian husband and pursuing grad school in Anthropology, she struggles with changes in lives of her best friend who is now pregnant and settled into life of family, and seemingly new woman in her ex-husband's life.
I loved reading into first half of this novel. The struggle to belong, the search that's seemingly aimless and the platitudes she utters to cajole herself, are somewhat relatable. And then it goes wonky.
I couldn't understand the sudden shift in tone to somewhat thriller/mystery genre but not entirely embracing it and it derailed the conversation the first half of the book started.
Maybe this was two books; two parts of whole that thematically resembled but executed in widely different styles. As a part of coherent story, it didn't come through.
Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Press for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.
May 17, 2025
Took me a little while to get into, but the second half was chaotic and fun while tackling big topics
February 13, 2025
4.5/5 ARC gifted by the publisher
I loved the discussions of motherhood, or rather, unmotherhood (?) / dismotherhood (?). I’m just making up words here 🤣
But the exploration of why one would want to become a parent (especially a mom) is such a refreshing way of thinking about motherhood. And frankly helps me find my vocabulary when people ask me why I don’t want kids and I get so annoyed but can’t just tell them off 😅
I also appreciate the discussions about the intersection of one’s selfhood/identity and one’s decision to become a mom. Especially the exploration that if someone doesn’t have a real sense of identity, how do they bring up a human being? Similarly, once someone becomes a mom, how do they maintain their sense of selfhood?
There’s also an interesting feminist vs anti feminist tug of war when speaking about becoming a mom and abortion. I wish these themes are explored more deeply. But the book definitely makes me question if my aversion towards motherhood is because I think that’s the “feminist” thing to do, or is it really an informed decision? But how much of our ideas around motherhood are shaped by societal expectations and feminist fantasies?
The novel has quite a slow start, and I wish the ending isn’t as neatly wrapped up. I was expecting the story to go a very wild direction but that didn’t happen. But overall, it raises fascinating questions about one’s desire to have children vs one’s curiosity of the self they would become as parents, and I think that is such a great way to put parenthood into perspective.
I loved the discussions of motherhood, or rather, unmotherhood (?) / dismotherhood (?). I’m just making up words here 🤣
But the exploration of why one would want to become a parent (especially a mom) is such a refreshing way of thinking about motherhood. And frankly helps me find my vocabulary when people ask me why I don’t want kids and I get so annoyed but can’t just tell them off 😅
I also appreciate the discussions about the intersection of one’s selfhood/identity and one’s decision to become a mom. Especially the exploration that if someone doesn’t have a real sense of identity, how do they bring up a human being? Similarly, once someone becomes a mom, how do they maintain their sense of selfhood?
There’s also an interesting feminist vs anti feminist tug of war when speaking about becoming a mom and abortion. I wish these themes are explored more deeply. But the book definitely makes me question if my aversion towards motherhood is because I think that’s the “feminist” thing to do, or is it really an informed decision? But how much of our ideas around motherhood are shaped by societal expectations and feminist fantasies?
The novel has quite a slow start, and I wish the ending isn’t as neatly wrapped up. I was expecting the story to go a very wild direction but that didn’t happen. But overall, it raises fascinating questions about one’s desire to have children vs one’s curiosity of the self they would become as parents, and I think that is such a great way to put parenthood into perspective.
August 10, 2025
This was fun and quick! I only wish we spent a little longer with each dramatic reveal. Otherwise, a great set of characters and a journey that keeps you thinking! A solid 4 stars for me.
February 19, 2025
Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Press for the ARC. I really liked the first half of the novel, Sanjena Sathian has got a great writing style, and the characterization and plot in the first half was really interesting. There was also some really nice sarcastic humor. Its in the second half that the plot starts to lose its shape and things become a little weaker.
July 11, 2025
turns campy & loses the plot
I loved the premise of this book, and perhaps had too high of expectations, but unfortunately this book missed the mark for me. It started in a unique but interesting voice, but as some other readers noted, the tone shifted so strongly in the second half of the book that it detracted from the meaningful revelations, in my opinion. I appreciate the overall idea, I simply don’t feel it was executed in a way that held the meaning I hoped for. It became campy in the second half, but the plot didn’t move forward in a way that kept me captivated. I almost felt like the author intended to have a Hiaasen effect, but missed the mark. And, without spoilers, I’ll say the ending simply didn’t have the feminist empowerment moment I was waiting for.
I’m bummed, especially because the idea held such promise!
I loved the premise of this book, and perhaps had too high of expectations, but unfortunately this book missed the mark for me. It started in a unique but interesting voice, but as some other readers noted, the tone shifted so strongly in the second half of the book that it detracted from the meaningful revelations, in my opinion. I appreciate the overall idea, I simply don’t feel it was executed in a way that held the meaning I hoped for. It became campy in the second half, but the plot didn’t move forward in a way that kept me captivated. I almost felt like the author intended to have a Hiaasen effect, but missed the mark. And, without spoilers, I’ll say the ending simply didn’t have the feminist empowerment moment I was waiting for.
I’m bummed, especially because the idea held such promise!
August 24, 2025
What a fun doppelganger story! There were parts of this that work so well and parts that get too indulgent or too obvious. I would definitely have edited out some of the info dropping towards the end. it reminded me of Mona Awad's work in the madness of the second half, but not as well written.
Oh, heck, I'll round up to 4 because there's a lot about names and individuality and I have a similar and similarly rare name, so I felt that. And, also, Sathian clearly has something better than this in her.
Oh, heck, I'll round up to 4 because there's a lot about names and individuality and I have a similar and similarly rare name, so I felt that. And, also, Sathian clearly has something better than this in her.
May 31, 2025
I did not like this book. It was very strange with lots of Indian spiritualism and holistic medicinal theories and practices. I should have quit it before I got too far into it. I kept thinking it would get better, but it did not.
June 27, 2025
A piercing exploration of the unrelenting pressures on women as well as an examination of millennial adulthood and the painful quest to forge an identity. Well crafted, mysterious, and I was pleasantly surprised by the dystopian twists in the second half.
May 13, 2025
Loved the writing, loved the references to New Haven and Brooklyn, loved the protagonist. I kind of lost the plot toward the end but I’m giving 5 stars because of how much I enjoyed the first 75%.
March 12, 2025
I recently reconnected with a college friend after a decade, and as I scrolled through her Instagram and the former classmates I came across through her, I saw photos of engagements, bachelorette parties, and weddings. Golden hour, black tie formal, stunning photos of these girls I once knew—now women—blissfully and beautifully in love. One after another. I called my mom and barely choked out a sentence before bursting into tears. I was bewildered by my reaction, scared, too, having prided myself on being a girl’s girl. Was I secretly a terrible person?
But I realized that the real trigger was deeper than the superficial stimuli. I was overwhelmed by grief over the life I thought I would have when I was 19. The dreams and ambitions I had, whether they were mine or not. Never mind that what I wanted then is incongruous with who I am now. Never mind that I’d take this reality any day over those expectations. To be perceived, once again, by people who knew me and my insecurities at that age—a self that cringes out present day me—was mortifying.
As I read GODDESS COMPLEX, I internalized my mom’s response that marriage is not the silencing of comparison culture and there will always be something up for criticism. Sanjena Sathian’s writing is languid but biting, and her sophomore release is delightfully weird. You should read with as little background as possible. Through Sanjana’s character, I was intrigued by the gatekeeping upheld by those with uteruses surrounding fertility and child rearing, especially the dangers of placing one’s sense of self in being a mother. I was enamored and frustrated by Sanjana’s unabashed selfishness, and I found myself wondering where in my socialization, eastern or western, this reaction had its origins. Where is the line between feminist agency and groupthink, Sathian probes. Part psychological thriller, part satire, I saw that, more than motherhood itself, GODDESS COMPLEX is about how our ideas about ourselves can meld our realities to the extremes and the struggle to discern duty from delusion.
Thank you @penguinpress for the e-ARC. GODDESS COMPLEX is out now 💗
But I realized that the real trigger was deeper than the superficial stimuli. I was overwhelmed by grief over the life I thought I would have when I was 19. The dreams and ambitions I had, whether they were mine or not. Never mind that what I wanted then is incongruous with who I am now. Never mind that I’d take this reality any day over those expectations. To be perceived, once again, by people who knew me and my insecurities at that age—a self that cringes out present day me—was mortifying.
As I read GODDESS COMPLEX, I internalized my mom’s response that marriage is not the silencing of comparison culture and there will always be something up for criticism. Sanjena Sathian’s writing is languid but biting, and her sophomore release is delightfully weird. You should read with as little background as possible. Through Sanjana’s character, I was intrigued by the gatekeeping upheld by those with uteruses surrounding fertility and child rearing, especially the dangers of placing one’s sense of self in being a mother. I was enamored and frustrated by Sanjana’s unabashed selfishness, and I found myself wondering where in my socialization, eastern or western, this reaction had its origins. Where is the line between feminist agency and groupthink, Sathian probes. Part psychological thriller, part satire, I saw that, more than motherhood itself, GODDESS COMPLEX is about how our ideas about ourselves can meld our realities to the extremes and the struggle to discern duty from delusion.
Thank you @penguinpress for the e-ARC. GODDESS COMPLEX is out now 💗
January 12, 2025
When I started this book, I thought the author was trying to impress. The first sentence was overly bizarre to the point of pretentiousness, followed by descriptive phrases like "Pepto-Bismol pink" and "snow globe synecdoche." But once the book found its flow, it either lost that edge or became assimilated into Sanjana's personality, which I found to be endearing despite being overly negative at times.
Ultimately, this book blew my mind; the author did end up impressing me. She's a brilliant storyteller who crafted an interesting narrative while tackling big topics like feminism, abortion, motherhood, identity crises, and tumultuous family relationships. I found myself relating to much of Sanjana's inner journey, and I think most readers can find at least something to relate to with the wide net Sathian casts.
One thing I do have a question about is the fact that the author gave one of the characters her own name. Maybe it speaks to how personal the story was for her, but I thought it was an interesting choice.
This book is one of my new all-time favorites. The author's writing ability is some of the best I've encountered, her storytelling just as great. But what really captured me was her ability to weave deeper meaning into the text in a way that was both layered and natural. 5/5, I hope this book takes over the internet this year.
Ultimately, this book blew my mind; the author did end up impressing me. She's a brilliant storyteller who crafted an interesting narrative while tackling big topics like feminism, abortion, motherhood, identity crises, and tumultuous family relationships. I found myself relating to much of Sanjana's inner journey, and I think most readers can find at least something to relate to with the wide net Sathian casts.
One thing I do have a question about is the fact that the author gave one of the characters her own name. Maybe it speaks to how personal the story was for her, but I thought it was an interesting choice.
This book is one of my new all-time favorites. The author's writing ability is some of the best I've encountered, her storytelling just as great. But what really captured me was her ability to weave deeper meaning into the text in a way that was both layered and natural. 5/5, I hope this book takes over the internet this year.
April 16, 2025
I found the messaging very clear and comforting despite the bleak chaos that the book builds up to. Sanjana, although depicted immature compared to her peers, felt like one of the more emotionally mature narrators I've experienced. What might come off as distant or flippant, is a very real response to some of the, for lack of a better word mishaps, Sanjana gets involved in. She was a true mirror to some cultural and societal expectations that I am personally experiencing and I would recommend this book to others who are exploring themes around desire, regret, motherhood, womanhood and sisterhood.
January 29, 2025
The language is superb. I love the rhythm and pace of the story, however to call it a psychological thriller feels anticlimactic. The plot is eerie and satirically strange, but lackluster. But perhaps that’s the commentary the author is trying to make? The world of fertility, pregnancy, and motherhood is only as scary as your relationship to those topics. The protagonist is both charming and faintly nihilistic, which is a weird combination that somehow works. But again, maybe her being written as unlikable (as most women who deviate from wanting to be mothers often are) is only the perception based on your relationship to feminism. Nonetheless, I liked the main character. And for that, the book prevailed as a surprising favorite.
July 27, 2025
Loved this novel - super duper resonated. Hilarious, whimsical, yet heavy and thought provoking (and easy to read). 5 stars!
March 29, 2025
nice and short but even with its length the twist and payoff just seemed ok to me
October 18, 2025
I liked the novel until the protagonist reached India. I felt that the India section lacked agency and the plot did not work for me. I also did not enjoy the cliches (ashram, yoga, white guy in Bollywood, Mumbai smelling of Bombil fish). But the writing is really good and I will read whatever the author writes next.
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