Goddess Complex

A Novel

By: Sanjena Sathian

Narrated by: Rukhmani K. Desai

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and Library Journal • Jezebel’s May Book Club Pick

“Inventive . . . astute . . . sharp and unexpected . . . Haunting and hilarious, Goddess Complex is at once a satire, a Gothic tale, a novel of ideas, a character study. Like any individual life, the book bristles with possibilities.” —R.O. Kwon, The New York Times Book Review

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 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 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 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 much more.

Psychological page turner

Great narrator, gripping story, darkly funny, surprisingly poignant—a book of ideas that reads like a thriller

Interesting way to talk about an important topic.

Just when u thought i knew where this was going, there was a twist. Well done!

The Internal and External conflict of being able to bare children

I really enjoyed how the author shares the complex experience that people who can barely children experience. On both sides, whether wanting a child or wanting to not birth a child, the journey to those decisions are not an easy one and takes a community to help. The cross between cultural implications really identified with me as an Indian woman and came at a time where I can really relate to the story. Great read!

almost magical realism

I love how it felt we transported into this dreamy world where reality and imagination blurred. lt was a skillful approach to discussing what it means to be woman with a womb who is struggling with ideas of motherhood and what it means to be single and childless. I feel like most books have some sort of romance interest in books like these, but I liked how the man was a side character to what was happening to the lead character. This author's last book was a favorite, and this is quickly a favorite too - I am a big fan now.

Horrible Narrator

I couldn’t finish because this narration is so basic. Retuning this title. Such a shame for the author because it was prolly a decent story