Review: Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti

goodreads summary

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I always put so much pressure on my first book of the year because I’ve got this three year, now four year, streak of starting off my reading year with a really good book. This book definitely made the list of memorable first reads of the year.

This book is a fictional biography of Dava Shastri’s life that begins on the day when her family join her in a mansion on a secluded island and learn that their family matriarch is going to be dying in a day. We get to read about and from Dava directly and this philanthropy empire she’s built as well as about all her children who were affected from the ambition, dreams, and aspirations of this powerful woman. It is a story about a woman starting an empire and her last day on earth as she observes and reflects how she got where she did and where it’s going to go when she’s no longer there.

I genuinely loved the themes discussed in this book. Dava Shastri is portrayed as a powerful woman who’s unapproachable, selfish, and sometimes ambitious to a fault in her fight to build an empire that will outlive her. The contrast between this ambitious woman who’s perceived as selfish and cunning and the mission of her company which is altruistic to its core is a symbolic reoccurring theme. It’s the perfect depiction of the many reflections of a woman.

In society’s preferred view, a woman first starts off as a daughter, and graduates to become a good wife, a good mother, and a good grandmother. Her function in the world she’s raised in is to shelter, care, and nurture. People forget that a woman is also simply, a woman, an individual with her own dreams and aspirations. Women sacrifice so much and hide away at the idea of true authenticity because their role in life isn’t to serve themselves, it’s to serve others.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone in society has their own lovely bundle of expectations, but a man is more easily able to separate his true self from his many societal reflections and expectations than a woman.

There was this one scene in the book that got to me:

“Honey,” she said hesitantly. “I’m not cut out to be an Eliza. There’s so much I still want to do… for me.” She let the words flap there, out in the open, and ducked her head, ashamed.

“I know,” he said, gazing at her with kind, sad eyes. “I’ve never had a problem being the Eliza to your Hamilton.”

One of my favorite things about this book is the relationship between Dava Shastri and her husband Arvind. The timeline in this book isn’t exactly linear. We’re flashing backwards and forwards and when we’re flashing backwards, it’s not necessarily flashing back sequentially. Even then, reading about how Dava and Arvind met and how their relationship evolved into something so comforting and dependable felt just so heavy. I don’t know how to explain it other than that it actually made me feel lonely.

A big topic in this book is also loneliness. Dava never felt like she fit in as an Indian or American and this Dynasty she ruthlessly built is her home, it’s her carved into a business. In the fight to preserve and further it, I think she was fighting to belong somewhere. I think her desperation to preserve her name was her desperation to belong and stay in a world she didn’t feel welcome in.

I think that Dava found comfort in Arvind in that dependability and the respect he gave her. He sacrificed so much for her and helped her pave the way to embrace her dreams. He was one of the few people who saw her for who she was.

I loved the representation in this book. First of all, the cover of this book screams Rekha. If you don’t know Rekha, she’s a gorgeous Indian actress who rose to fame in the 70’s. She’s a timeless symbol of grace, power, and femininity. Dava Shastri also grew up in a family who spoke Telugu which is the language my family speaks as well! It was so exciting to see all these South Indian references and have it be from my specific region.

I of course related to all the conversations about growing up as a first generation Indian in America who’s a lover of arts and the overall disconnect Dava felt with her Indian community.

Dava’s children were also a big part of this book. The children’s disconnect with their mother and how they feel about being passed on their mother’s legacy, extremely high expectations, and empire is portrayed in the diversity of their personalities, emotions, and who they are as a person.

We have a son who’s filled with anger and is unable to process his place and truth of his family.

We have a daughter who is forced to be calm and organized, the leader of siblings, and their mother’s faithful employee and child.

We have another daughter who is misunderstood and whose heart beats with a rhythm and purpose her mother doesn’t understand. She’s the peace maker with the big heart. The one who doesn’t feel welcome.

And we have a son who’s softer, innocent, and is somehow wading his way through the mess of it all.

We get the feelings of rage, anger, tension, fear, unworthiness, hatred, understanding, pity, and feeling undeserving.

I think that everyone can find a Shastri kid to relate to or find something in each of them that they understand.

The one quip I had about this book is that some of the transitions happened too fast and somethings in the plot just happened a bit too easily. It’s hard to explain without going into spoilers but in certain scenes with conflicts, the conversation would happen a bit too easy and someone would say the right thing and a situation would be settled. Which is a bit unrealistic in a family with a ton of tensions. And I felt like towards the end, when Dava Shastri’s time was coming to an end, the pacing was a bit too quick in a way that there were a couple of scenes that felt like they were shoved in the plot at the last minute, It felt like the scenes just happened to pop up in the plot sporadically to ensure certain questions were answered instead of having the scenes build up a bit more naturally and smoothly.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I think it brings up really good conversations about how it’s like to grow up in a family where parental expectations are so large and heavy. It’s a wonderful character study that features children who’ve grown up in these conditions and how they deal with a life like that and how they deal with certain traumas such as loss and feeling a disconnect with a parent. It features an ambitious philanthropist who’s gone through so much in her life to build a business to help others, reflect and realize the role her journey had on her loved ones and herself a woman, daughter, mother, and wife who’s struggling to do best by everyone. It shows how messy life and love is.