Renditions of My Soul: The Story of a Balinese Woman

by Desak Yoni

A Balinese girl, whose childhood dreams turn into a nightmare in a foreign country, returns to her island home to rediscover herself, but her problems follow her and multiply. Fate holds her captive and she finds it hard to escape from the path she is on. While writing her diary, she returns to her childhood haunts, retracing her own fears of bad karma. Home on her island that everybody considers to be a paradise, she finds very little respite. She is reminded that bad karma is accepted as retribution for ill deeds. Read on...

332 pages, Paperback

First published March 10, 2014

Reviews

[Mish · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up on a recent holiday in Bali hoping to gain more of an understanding of Balinese culture and way of life outside of the tourist culture. This was less about Bali and more about a series of disatrous relationships the main protagonist gets into and seems unwilling to make the escape. There was very little about Bali culture. The time periods set whilst living in Bali revealed little and could have been set anywhere in the world.

The storytelling was disjointed, repetitive and simply didn't flow, so I am rather surprised to know that the co-author is an editor by profession.

The only thing going for it is the strength and tenacity of the main character.

Overall, not what I expected and a disappointing read.

[Cath]

I hated this book. Couldn’t wait to finish it. What a weak and selfish women, putting her child thru what she did !!! I found this book hard to follow, as it jumped around from one thing to the next. It’s badly written and badly edited. I really didn’t like this women. She had such victim mentality, WHY she would want to tell this miserable story, I have no idea !!!! It’s so “poor me” and she makes no attempt to help herself or her children. She is such a self absorbed martyr. This book is 100% frustrating and 100% unenjoyable.

[Mei · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the wittiness and humor in how the author writes the story. As we go along the story of Madè, we also get to know not only the traditional Bali but also the current realities in Bali, good as well as bad, mostly brought about influx of travelers from different parts of the world staying to search themselves in Bali.