The Palace of Illusions is an incredible book for nearly any reader, though fans of The Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson, and The Hunger Games will probably be this books most loving following.
This book is a reimagining of an ancient epic from India called The Mahabharata meaning the big war, or the great war (as far as I know) and is a story following the lives of 5 kings from ancient India. The Mahabharata is revered and loved in Indian culture and is a story nearly every Hindu will know seemingly by heart.
The thing that makes The Palace of Illusions so different from every other reimagining of The Mahabharata is the perspective from which the story is told. In reading the novelization of the same story by Ramesh Menon the book has a keen focus on the men of the book and I often felt the lives of the women took a back seat to the men. However in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's reimagining is told completely from the perspective of Draupadi, the wife of all five of the Pandeva Kings.
The book offers a fresh and subtly feminist take on the much beloved ancient epic that is sure to make anyone feel deeply attached to Draupadi, a character I never thought about before.
If you enjoy a super fast paced book, this is the one! It manages to fit the worlds largest epic into only 300 or so pages, so the action starts almost immediately. So please don't let the "weird" names or places keep you from enjoying what I consider to be my newest favorite book. I only wish I could read it for the first time again!
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