The stunning cover of this book and the promise of a story satirizing the wellness craze hooked me. Unfortunately this book did not live up to my expectations.

Indian-American Anita Kathlikar is tired of her dead-end job, overprotective mom, and the sameness of living in NYC. After securing three free months of rent in Venice at a place called The Gig, she heads west in hopes of a new journalism career at a place called, Gonzo. Anita had met up with their CEO at a conference and plans to reach out to her for a job.

Almost immediately things don't go according to Anita's plans AND Anita starts lying--to herself, to her Gig-mates, to her mom, to pretty much everyone. She doesn't hear back from anyone at Gonzo and seems to hate anyone and everyone who's not trendy or affiliated with The Goddess Effect, a wellness place she joins. Her BFF at TGE is Stacy (engaged to a rich fiancé) who seems way too good/genuine to be true. The head of the retreat, Venus, is an Indian woman who seems to be perfection in human form, but Anita starts to notice cracks in the facade (and promptly makes sarcastic comments about them). It doesn't stop her from maxing out her credit cards to stay with the program, even being picked to go on one of their exclusive retreats.

The moment she's accepted to the retreat, things start to get even more suspect. She immediately hears from the woman at Gonzo who's ignored her for months and is asked to cover the retreat. Stacy comes clean about her true intentions. The banality of Venus's mantras and entire aesthetic start to wear thin. Anita's complex relationship with her own self-esteem as a woman of color gets even more complicated as she starts to notice odd things happening at The Goddess Effect.

There's a lot going on in this novel and it suffers for it. Is it a commentary on wellness crazes? Racism against Indian Americans? A woman's coming of age within an Indian family? A woman's search for her true identity? Marikar doesn't focus on any one plot point and ends up jumbling all of them into an overstuffed book. I also felt like the exploration of the racism Anita endured waned and only really started to crystalize into a strong plot point near the end of the book. I don't mind a book that attempts to explore numerous concepts, but this one seemed to suffer from uneven and confusing narrative through-lines for each issue it tried to tackle.

I also really wanted to like Anita more. The consistent slang and stream-of-conscious narration didn't bother me like other reviewers but I do think it took away from the story. There can be flawed characters that you root for; and I just couldn't root for Anita. Her experiences, personality, and backstory were too convoluted to engage me.