Publication Date: 20th June 2023
Genre: Contemporary Urban Fantasy, LGBTQ+, Indian, Coming of Age
3 Stars
One Liner: Great premise and potential; Average output
*This review contains spoilers*
Jai Gill is a yogi and a yoga trainer raised by a trio of witches. He captures and slays demons on the side, thanks to his family’s magical legacy. He falls in love with Vir, the boy who moves next door with his rich and influential family.
However, the trouble is that Vir’s life is steeped in evil, and it could bring a lot more than heartbreak for Jai. It’s time for Jai to fully explore his magical powers and do what he must.
The story comes from Jai’s first-person POV.
What I Like:
The premise is too good to resist. I loved the idea of a desi-witchy story with LGBTQ+ central characters. Fortunately, the book delivers on certain elements and makes it a worthy read.
Jai’s voice is authentic and very well done. It aligns with his upbringing and age, making it easy to listen to his narration and empathize with him. The pop culture references and the allure of social media add depth to the MC. Jai’s character flaws (he’s quite judgmental) act in his favor and portray him as a realistic person. Jai is the book’s biggest strength (not a surprise as this seems to be a #OwnVoices book).
Some side characters are well-developed and support the MC. They have to be strong since they train Jai to understand life and his quest. Even though Vir’s arc is much more limited, the other important characters establish themselves.
The details about yoga are the real deal. After reading so many fake and diluted versions of what yoga is supposed to mean, it’s a relief to see the truer interpretations in this book. In fact, the author’s knowledge of the subjects is evident in many parts of the book (if only…).
The pacing is slow in the beginning but picks up after the first 50-60 pages. The writing is easy enough to read and follow. I did enjoy some of the concepts and the interpretations. The overall plotting is pretty solid, even if the route is winded and long.
What Could Have Been Better for Me:
The story comes in two timelines. Jai begins at the present time (when he is almost twenty-one years old) and goes on to share detailed information about his childhood and events leading to his current situation. However, there is no clear marking between time jumps when they happen within the same chapter. This makes it hard to follow when the story is in the present and in the past.
A lot of crucial information is revealed through dialogues. Despite the dialogue size being moderated with enough tags, it’s still like reading pages of conversation to stay up to date. This info dump is due to the single first-person POV, which makes it impossible for others to reveal their backstories in other ways (at least, we don’t have diary entries, so that’s a relief).
One of the reasons for my interest in the book is the possibility of having an all-Indian witchy novel. I sure didn’t read one till now. However, given Jai’s parentage and his family’s lineage, most scenes in their house read like Western witchy cozy reads with itsy bitsy pieces of colonized gyan from Hindu scriptures.
This book suffers from what I call the Excessive Knowledge Syndrome. The author has years of experience in Tarot, Kabbalah, Eastern and Western Schools of Mythology and Mysticism, and is a certified Ashtanga, Vinyasa, and Yin Yoga teacher. This means the book has information about all of it. We have an entire chapter dedicated to Major Arcana in Tarot (Hero’s Journey) and its comparison with the Super Mario game. Let’s say it adds nothing to the plot.
There are several fillers throughout the book. Some are interesting, and some are not. Even with immense interest in the subjects, I found the added details tiresome. Not sure how the general readers will feel. I won’t be surprised if they zoned out. I’d have preferred a toned-down version (and a larger font size in the print copy).
As much as I love mysticism and et al, I don’t want my fiction to take a philosophical tone- definitely not on the first page. The prologue should have begun with the action and moved on to introspection about the spiritual & real world, Delhi, and stuff instead of a page and a half of theory. Luckily for me, the book improved to have enough action later on.
There’s a lot of descriptive writing, which works for some scenes. However, it gets excessive in some places and weighs down the narration. Not sure who the target audiences are, but all that overall explanation makes me wonder if the global market is the aim.
The climax started great, giving me high expectations for a wow scene. Of course, I jinxed myself and ended up with average stuff. There’s great potential. No denying that. It blends entities from different mythologies and creates a fab fight scene. However, the execution dampens the appeal. Also, one bit is directly borrowed from how Kali and Chandikaa kill Raktabija. Other readers may think it’s a sort of ode (didn’t work for me).
What Didn’t Work for Me:
(this section contains the elachis no one wants in their biryani)
There’s a conversation in the book about how even excess of anything is not good. Then, there’s another about intentions. Ironically, both these aspects seem to have slipped through the cracks in certain aspects.
First, stop using stories about gods to justify personal food choices. God Shiva accepting beef as nivedam (offering) doesn’t mean he wants us to eat the same. It means he will accept anything you give him with true devotion. There’s a story in Mahabharatha where a rishi eats bull’s dung on orders. It gives him temporary immortality and keeps him alive in a dangerous situation. Does it mean we bring dung to the dining table? Also, avoiding silk for silkworms when you want to enjoy meat doesn't look good. Animals surely don't volunteer to become human food! Do what you want, but don’t give unwanted gyan.
Second, stop justifying religious conversions in the name of love. How is it that love doesn’t have religion, but nikah does? Why it’s patriarchal for women to change their surname post-marriage but absolutely okay to change their name, religion, and entire identity in ‘inter-faith’ relationships? Where is inter-faith when one party converts to the other’s religion?
Third, trick-and-treat cannot be really compared to the tarpanam (black sesame seeds released with water in a ritual) given to ancestors during Pitru Paksha (we don’t offer the sesame seeds to living beings or share them with neighbors). It has similarities with Samhain (both are pagan practices), which has been misappropriated multiple times to become something it wasn’t (modern-day Halloween).
Fourth, based on what I’ve read and enquired from others well-versed in history, the Hakenkreuz was already used in Germany before Hitler. It's there in the ancient Germanic heraldry with different names. So even though they know the swastika was used in India and Japan, they took it from what they thought was Pangermanism. (And what on earth is Indian mysticism even?)
But why are we even discussing all these elements in this book? Well, refer to the point about excessive knowledge syndrome. These add almost nothing to the central plot but somehow had to be there.
To summarize, The Yogi Witch is a decent work of desi fantasy with quite a bit of introspection, information, and some action. The queer voice is the highlight of the book.
Looks like this could be a duology or a trilogy, so I hope the subsequent books have fewer fillers and more core action.
Thank you, Blogchatter, author Zorian Cross, and publisher HarperCollins India, for a copy of the book. This review is powered by Blogchatter Book Review Program and contains my honest opinion about the book.
You can buy the paperback of The Yogi Witch on Amazon.
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P.S.: Though the character falls in the YA-NA (young adult & new adult) category, the book is marked adult due to sexual content. A couple of scenes are gross. Steam level – 2.5.
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TW: Male rape (off-page), homophobia, abuse, and sex rituals (including necrophilia).
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