This book is so interesting. It is written so well. This has a unique take on religion and mythology. I did enjoy it

Unfortunatly I didn't really enjou this. I really loved this author's other book and that's why I wanted to read this one. But this didn't grip me at any point. I've thought about dnf'ing this several times, but hoped the good stuff would come. Sorry to give this just 2 stars, I did like the writing style..

Good for people who like: thoughtful fiction, coming of age stories, books about complicated lives.

Blue Skinned Gods is a powerful story meditating on the far reaching effects of a tightly controlled childhood, and finding identity when everything changes.

Kalki was born with blue skin. He grew up in an ashram in India with his parents, and has spent his childhood believing that he is the tenth reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. His father controls his life and choices, organising ceremonies and healings for pilgrims, and Kalki is happy to do his duty. Kalki is famous for the miracles he performs - he has successfully healed many of the sick who have visited him, and offerings flood in to support his work. But as he grows up and learns more of the outside world and the limits of his powers, Kalki wonders whether there is a darker side to his upbringing.

The story is narrated by Kalki as an adult, and a large part of the book focuses on his childhood in retrospect. The layers of complexity build as he ages and witnesses more of the world, experiences more complicated situations, and begins to separate truth from lies. The characters and their interactions are vivid and emotional. The book is split into four sections. The first three are set in India and are slower paced, with rich settings and a deep dive into Kalki’s contained life and relationships. The final section is set in New York, and is much faster paced and more firmly grounded in the modern world.

The novel explores identity, and creating a place in the world when everything is turned upside down. Gender and sexuality are particularly explored, as well as ethnicity and the caste system. The novel features a diverse range of characters who have a strong influence on Kalki and his search for self. There are also strong themes of belief, family, and exploitation.

A deeply affecting story that is both memorable and heartbreaking. There is anger and sadness and regret, a longing for home and a place in the world. This is a book to take some time with.

This book was reviewed by Cathy.

With thanks to Legend Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

Shelves: General Fiction (Adult); Literary Fiction; November 2021

Thank you to Legend Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. The premise of this book is both beautiful and heartbreaking. It's a very fascinating look at a young boy with blue skin's journey into adulthood when he has been raised to believe himself to be a God. It's about unlearning who you thought you were, and who you were told you should become, in order to grow into who you really are. This is definitely highlighted through the exploration of his sexuality (perhaps the one part of his personhood that he got to truly craft and explore for himself) and the revelations about his family and their deceptions. It's really a story about faith, as well as trauma. It's hard to talk about some of the best parts of this story without giving away spoilers! But I was gripped from the opening scene, where you meet Kalki Sami as he goes to heal a woman who has been struck down by a car, and explains to the reader that his father had taught him that he is the tenth incarnation of the Hindu God, Vishnu and that he has the power to heal others. The characters are really fascinating and I enjoyed the discussions about the human desire to have faith, in our religions, spirituality, our families, and ourselves. The last of the four sections did feel a bit rushed and stood out against the slower, more thoughtful earlier sections. Overall, I really enjoyed this book!

S.J. Sindu’s Blue-Skinned Gods tells the story of a boy in Tamil Nadu, India, born with blue skin. Kalki is raised in an ashram believing he is the human incarnation of the god Vishnu, and he knows little of the outside world. As he grows up though, things begin to test his belief and he becomes uncertain of his status as a god. When he goes on a world tour his stop in New York leads Kalki to the underground rock scene, and he finally learns the full truth about himself. Kalki is then forced to find his place in this completely new world.

This fascinating and unique novel explores the human connection to religion, spirituality, belief, and faith; from Hinduism that is at the heart of the novel, to other religions and secular forms of faith. Sindu also explore colourism in her writing, highlighting the issues in the Indian caste system several times throughout the novel, and making reference to creams that aim to lighten skin tone.

As well as exploring ethnicity and caste, S.J. Sindu’s Blue-skinned Gods takes the reader on a journey through gender and sexuality as Kalki begins to expand his horizons and meet new characters that identify as transgender, non-binary, gay, and bisexual. Sindu’s writing also explores transgender identities outside of the western world, introducing Kalki to a group of thirunangaigal who camp on the grounds outside the ashram.

Blue-skinned Gods is a mesmerising, intriguing novel that spans continents, faiths and identities in a heartfelt story that looks at our need to believe in something and the way this can connect us.

This is not the book I was expecting – in a good way. I loved the premise, a boy born with blue skin believed to be a god on earth. Kaliki passes three trials needs to prove he’s a god on earth – but does he? I love the way the book explores family and the power of hope and religious beliefs. The book is narrated by Kaliki and you really get inside his head as he struggles with the burdens of passing three trials and his doubts about himself. This is a great book.

It's a story of a blue-skinned boy, brought up by a controlling father to believe he's a god. What sounded like a great book turned out to be a bit difficult to follow. All in all an interesting experience.

This was an interesting book although it didn't really play out the way I thought it would.

It tells the story of Kalki, a young boy born with blue skin and his relationship with his family and his life as a religious guru in India and his later life in NYC. The book explores his relationship with his parents and extended family, in particular his fraught relationship with his abusive and violent father who exploits Kalki's fame. I thought that there would be more of a religious/supernatural element to this book but it's very much about the corporeal realities of a young Indian boy's life and the way in which the adults around him exploit him.

The parts of the book set in NYC didn't work so well for me and I felt like some plot threads were left unresolved. This may have been a deliberate choice by the author but it left me feeling rather frustrated as a reader. It's quite difficult to talk about some of the other elements of the book without spoiling some of the key revelations but the story itself played out in an interesting way which I wasn't expecting.

Overall an above average read that gives an insight into the type of character I've not encountered before in literature.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

An intriguing coming-of-age story about a young Indian boy, raised to believe he is an incarnation of Vishnu because of his blue skin. Of course he, um, isn’t: Kalki does have blue skin but his family see him as an opportunity. Having established an ashram in Tamil Nadu, Kalki’s father begins the business of establishing Kalki as a miracle healer, delivering false hope to the poor and desperate in the local community, as well as credulous westerners seeking spiritual enlightenment in India.

Blue Skinned Gods is almost a story in two parts: Kalki’s early life in Tamil Nadu, where at the age of ten he is expected to perform three miracles in order to establish godhood, and his adventures in New York in his early-twenties where he is attempting to establish a new life in the wake of discoveries about his own identity.

Mostly this is a story about faith—our need to believe, often in the fate of irrefutable evidence in the contrary—and exploitation, but these themes are effortlessly entwined with various explorations of identity too, especially in New York, and with Kalki’s own queerness being almost the only aspect of selfhood that has not be constructed for him by others. In some ways, New York felt a little less vividly painted than Kalki’s childhood in Tamil, and I missed the intensity of the contained world and the tightly focused character portraits of Kalki’s family. I

It was kind of hard not be unpleasantly fascinated by … like how you could bring yourself to do that to a child. Like, raise them with such a limited understanding of the world that you can essentially brainwash them into believing they’re a god who can heal people. It was just such a sustained and calculated act of almost unimaginable cruelty to me, and it’s genuinely heart-breaking watching this 10-year-old kid struggle with the burden of believing he can do the impossible, especially when the world keeps offering him evidence he can’t. It quickly becomes clear that Kalki’s mother is as trapped as Kalki is—and not just by their specific set of circumstances, but socially and psychologically—but, oh my God, his dad? There is ultimately a reckoning with him but I found myself feeling there was almost another story here, I mean alongside his irredeemably terrible and abusive-on-every level behaviour. We learn he as a doctor in America when Kalki was born, which is to say, a rational and educated man, already possessed of the … not the power exactly but the technical capacity to heal (some) people. I kept asking myself why … what … what was the reality of his life, as an immigrant doctor in the USA, that he would make such a deliberate decision to abandon science for faith, helping people for exploiting them.

In any case, this is a book that is very much inviting questions–about faith and doubt, hope and identity, the nature of family and the connections between people. It is quite a harrowing read in many respects, but Kalki’s journey towards understanding both who he is and his place in the world is utterly absorbing. The sort of story that stays with you beyond the reading of it.

Kalki is the blue skinned boy believed to be the last incarnation of the god Vishnu. Set for the most part in his families Ashram outside a small town, we learn of Kalki's gift of healing in the local community and as his notoriety increases, the great world. The early books focus on his competitive but loving relationship with Lakshman and his formative relationship with Roopa both of whom help him to understand all is not as it he has been taught to believe. There is so much to unpack in this novel, the author deals wonderfully with the ideals of gender, sexuality, faith and godliness both within the story itself and mirrored through Indian mythology. While I enjoyed the story overall I, like other reviewers was disappointed in the ending however this is the only drawback as what precedes is wonderful.

Excellent story of a blue-skinned boy, brought up by a controlling father to believe he's a god. Reality bites once he grows up and realizes that his whole life was based on lies. Very well written and would definitely recommend.

I loved this book! It's a wonderful submersion into the story of an Indian family and the secrets and tragedy that linger across the pages. I was enchanted by the characters and the slow unfolding of the main character's story. Every character is richly drawn. If you're interested in Hindu Indian culture and the rich heritage that's layered with modern societal values you'll be as enraptured as I was. Dip your toe in and you'll be swept up in the events that surround this astonishing and rich story. I couldn't put it down and was swept along in the narrative. A great read.

I found this book very interesting and engaging. The story is beautiful, reading about young Kalki broke my heart in a thousand pieces several times. The first books are more slow paced, they're set in India, so it felt to me that it was just right. The last book is set in New York and the pace is accelerated, just as it should be.
There are a lot of interesting topics: what is faith? And how does it affect our life? There are also some thought provoking notions about exploitation of "god children" in certain cultures and in depth thoughts about family and family relations.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

A boy is born with blue skin. He is believed to have healing powers and be an incarnation of the Hindu divinity Vishnu. His father opens an ashram that gains a reputation and is well attended by pilgrims. We are in Tamil Nadu, in India, and people have a great need to believe and hold on to something. Furthermore, due to his popularity, when Kalki is old enough his father will take him on tour in America. But how is this possible in the 21-century? This was an intriguing coming-of-age story on an original topic exploring identity, family, class and the need for spirituality.

Kalki’s childhood, his healings, and the way some people die because of their faith and the way he is treated as a divinity of our times is really surreal. While the overall trajectory is predictable, it is still interesting to see lies, secrets and mysteries unravel, and how someone who has been brought up as Kalki fares on underground rock scene in America. The novel also explores other issues and question traditional values which, when transposed in today’s America, sound unjust and anachronistic, such as paternal authoritarianism and class/caste division. Other foci are what is meant by family and concepts related to the need to believe, such as faith and idolatry: will people go on believing even when divinity is disproved?

The writing style is not as captivating as it could have been given the topic but this is entirely my personal taste, The advantage is that it is simple and accessible. Still an interesting, worthwhile read.

My thanls to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exhange for a review copy

This was such a let-down. Far too much of the narrative takes place in the protagonist's childhood. That what we are reading is being 'written' by the narrator is also very gimmicky. I found the tone a bit too simplistic,

A very powerful and fascinating story. But I was a bit taken aback with the abrupt ending... apart from that, Blue-Skinned Gods is a book hard to put down.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book.

This story is beautiful, it is full of vivid imagery and descriptions and rich with culture. I loved it and couldnt stop reading. It will be with me for a while.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this book.
While I liked Blue-Skinned Gods, I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.
I loved the idea of the plot and I did love certain parts of the story.
Sadly I found the book was a bit too slow paced so I found myself bored sometimes.
In the end I do think this book has great potential and I do recommend it to anyone that likes the sound of it!

Blue-Skinned Gods is a novel about belief and growing up, as a boy treated as a god looks to the reality of the world. Living in an ashram in India, Kalki was born blue, and his father controls his life, leading towards the trials that will prove him an avatar of Vishnu. However, as he grows up, Kalki begins to realise that his father is keeping secrets from him, and when he finally discovers the truth about his life, it is time to discover who he really is.

The narrative is told through Kalki looking back, with most of the story focused on him growing up, and it gives a very vivid picture of someone treated as a childgod and having to deal with the fact that might all be a lie. The later part of the book, set in America, has a faster pace, with the ending more of a fresh start than an ending, and Kalki as the narrator does give some earlier hints about what he does later on. In this way, it is very much a coming of age type story, though quite different to many of them because it is focused around ideas of belief as well as self, and how to handle realising you cannot actually heal people despite being told you can.

There's a lot about sexuality and gender woven into the story, mostly as subplots and explorations of fluidity and self, and it's especially interesting to see how Kalki relates gender and sexuality to Hindu stories, using stories as a source of acceptance both of himself and others. In general, the depiction of someone's beliefs being challenged in various ways, and how people adapt to that, is a key part of the book, especially relating it to storytelling. Whether it's the lies used to present someone as a god or the stories we tell to make sense of things, stories and fiction run throughout the narrative.

I found this an engrossing book that perhaps could've gone on a little longer so the later part didn't feel to get a lot less time than the earlier part, though the whirlwind sense of the ending does fit with Kalki's experiences.

Blue-skinned Gods is a mesmerizing story about faith, family, identity, and sexuality. It broke my heart in a million pieces and glued all those pieces back together afterwards to make my heart even bigger..

Having faith, in yourself, in a god, in something. Faith should make you stronger, give happiness, should be forgiving, should be accepting. Instead, there have been so many wrongdoings in various religions, and unfortunately, little has changed. What if you’re ten years old and have been told all your life that you’re the tenth human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu? Because you have blue skin. And what if you find cracks in your divinity? What if you might be a fraud? Who are you holding on to? Your family? The people who believe in you? Yourself?

From the first page, I was immersed in this story. I smiled at Kalki and Lakshman as kids; their brotherhood was so tender and loving. I cried when I read about Julian and his crystals. I loved how the author portrayed women: Roopa, the girl Kalki healed, Kalyani, a trans girl, and Amma, his mom. I liked how sexuality and gender were fluid in the last part of the story.

The story is divided into four books. The pacing in the first three books is slow and thoughtful. I love fast-paced books, but stories like Blue-skinned Gods deserve a slower pace to really understand what it’s all about. In this case, to get under Kalki’s skin, to understand his doubts while he kept his facade up. The pacing in the last book suddenly felt rushed. It’s a beautiful story, but it could have been even better if the author added a hundred pages or so to explore Kalki’s life in New York more. To show his doubts, his fears while living a western life, and letting go of his old life as a god. But although I found the pacing a little off in the last book, some chapters still made me cry and I highly recommend this story.