The Legend of Meneka by Kritika H. RaoMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review
Seduction is all I've ever known.
I am made for it. I have destroyed lives with it.
I never wanted to.
The Legend of Meneka is a reimagining of Hindu mythology where much is told about Sage Vishwamitra, Kaushika in this tale, but not his famous love Meneka, giving the author room to breath new life into the story. I went into this having heard of celestial dancers and the name apsara but definitely not a solid base of Hindu mythology. I think this helped in making it a brand new, fresh interesting story and hurt with me having to take it slower as there was a good amount of new terminology and ideology for me to take in. There was a glossary of terms in the beginning that was helpful to refer back to but I think the first half pace may have felt slower to me because of my lack of knowledge.
This place, this mission---never have I been so vulnerable, so powerless.
We come into the story as aspara Meneka is seducing her mark, a queen that has been slowly moving away from worshiping Lord Indra. He's the deva (diety) of Amaravati (heaven) and needs worshipers to fuel his strength. When someone threatens that resource of power in the mortal world, he sends one of his immortal asparas to seduce and negate. Meneka is an immortal but very young, early twenties, and is emotionally tired of having to seduce, she wants to stay in Amaravati, to be near Indra, who she is devoted to but also Rambha, an aspara who was able to gain some freedom, doesn't have to go to the mortal realm to seduce, and that Meneka thinks she is in love with. Meneka makes the mistake of asking Indra for her freedom, he punishes her by sending her on a mission to seduce a sage gaining major power, Kaushika, and which three other asparas have failed. Thinking she'll get her freedom to stay in Amaravati and be with Rambha, Meneka portals to the mortal world to seduce Kaushika.
“That's what you have been taught,” Kaushika says. “But what do you think? For yourself?”
Once in the mortal world, Meneka discovers all is not what it seems and while trying to prove herself worthy to stay and study with Kaushika, in order to seduce him, she begins to question if everything she was taught in Amaravati is really true. This was a lot about self-discovery with religious questioning, what it means to be devout and to the whos, whats, and whys in the Hinduism world. This is all told from Meneka's point-of-view and why it feels more like a self-discovery story but there's also the friction with Kaushika. Friction because he's going against her lord, which will in turn destroy her home city, with her friends who are family, but also she finds that she is feeling seduced when she is the one supposed to be doing the seducing. The first half doesn't have Meneka and Kaushika really circling each other a lot in a romance way, he's off doing sage things and she's trying to tap into her own magic. When they start spending time together more, it was more lust between the two, with some emotion that could be said coming from Meneka for how Kaushika is trying to get her to realize her own power but while Meneka does get Kaushika to question and teach him some things, I'm not sure their romance felt moved beyond those lust feelings.
We are two opposites bound to each other in this game of mark and seducer, each of us taking either role, unknowing, unaware.
The ending gives us some reveals, with some surprising character desires/motivations, Kaushika's background and why he's on his mission to bring about Indra's doom, and brings in a climatic scene with the ultimate clashing between the mortals and immortals. As this is a duology, there wasn't a concrete ending but the story did deliver on how Meneka and Kaushika could have become intertwined, filling in the original legend. There was just a lot of Meneka self-discovery journey to wade through that I thought hurt the pace a lot, and the romance didn't quite shine through as much as I would have liked. If you're new to Hindu terms, mythology, just be ready to take this slower but you'll get a fresh story for your efforts, if albeit a bit slower going.
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