“Trail of Broken Wings” by Sejal Badani –A Burden of Shameful Secrets

The concept of actions and consequences is one we're all privy to and have experienced in one form or another... as a matter of fact, you've made it far enough to be reading book review blogs in life, chances are you've experienced the phenomenon in some surprising ways.

Perhaps unfortunately, the consequences of some decisions can take years upon years to make themselves known, and even if we don't really see it, the accumulation of the decisions we make and the secrets we keep can have a very powerful effect further down the line.

This is precisely the kind of thing three sisters are exposed to in Trail of Broken Wings , the first book by Sejal Badani.

To give a brief overview, the father of an Indian American family falls into a coma. One daughter, Sonya, left the family home years ago to pursue her dreams of photography and is reluctantly making her way back now.

The second daughter, Trisha, has arranged a relatively idyllic suburban life for herself, while his third daughter, Marin, has managed to have a very successful career of her own.

The story is about the three women coming together around their father's illness and all the terrible memories it propels to the surface. As a man who was subjected to terrible acts of racism but was nevertheless a perpetrator of terrifying violence, the father leaves his daughters and wife in a very conflicted state, each one having to cope in their own ways and wrestle with their inner demons and desires.

First of all, let me say that this has to be one of the more powerful stories to be published recently and will most certainly resonate with many people out there who were victims of domestic violence.

We dive deep into the thoughts and feelings of all four main characters (the daughters and their mother) and become privy to their internally-chaotic mental states as they try and make some sense of their father's life, the things he did to them in the name of familial duty, and how they can cope with it all. Needless to say, the subject matter in this book is very heavy, at times even forcing the reader to put down the book to let it all sink in.

Perhaps more than being a story about overcoming the scars of domestic violence, this is a narrative which explores the resilience of the human spirit and how the consequences to our actions can manifest themselves differently.

Badani really makes it a point to show all that the father did to each individual and the profound psychological impact it had... as well as how they were all able to find the strength, courage and resolve to keep on going and succeeding in life.

Thankfully, despite being a rather dark novel with its content, Trail of Broken Wings still maintains a certain air of hope, also telling a story of redemption, understanding, and forgiveness.

In the end, more than anything, we feel sorry for all of the characters and sad that sometimes, things simply unfold in a certain way and only in hindsight does everything become clear.

All in all, Trail of Broken Wings is certainly not your conventional novel, being more of a profound meditation on the human spirit done through a touching and realistic story, one that undoubtedly mirrors that of countless people in the real world.

I recommend it to anyone who isn't afraid of a slower and more thoughtful kind of read.

Favorite quote: "Never depend on another person for your happiness. If someone had the authority to give, then he or she had the authority to take away."

Sejal Badani Personal site Sejal Badani is a former attorney and currently a full-time author who made the Wall Street Journal bestsellers list and had the honour of being a finalist for both the Goodreads Fiction Award and the ABC/DISNEY Writing Fellowship. So far she has two published novels, Trail of Broken Wings and The Storyteller's Secret, both of of them becoming far more popular than ever anticipated.