I took out a small portion of an essay I recently wrote. Its about the book, Goddess for Hire, and the main character's new found identity of a reincarnated goddess. (drum roll please......)
Her unconventional
career choice (her “job” to defeat world evils as the reincarnated goddess,
Kali) is what makes this novel an alternative, or revised, rendition of the
chick-lit novel. Its
time-consuming and challenging qualities make being a goddess a true job.
[Possessive pronoun: its]
Most people would
probably visualize a woman character in a chick-lit to be focused on her job,
probably in business, or retail, or fashion. Compared to the rest of her family, Maya’s dreams and
aspirations are much different than theirs; who are all doctors. [Possessive
pronoun: theirs AND who] Maya on the other hand, gives a whole new experience
for chick-lit readers. [Simple sentence] Unlike the common business-woman
seen in many of these novels, Maya embraced a career that has never been seen
before: a reincarnated goddess, whose job is to defeat all the evil in the world. [Possessive pronoun: whose] Whom does Maya reincarnate into? The Hindu goddess,
Kali. [Use of whom] Maya is seen in the majority of the book focusing on
her powerful skills and learning how to “call the goddess within.” She considered this being her
full-time job, and worried that getting a “real” job would interfere with her
goddess’ duties. [An apostrophe to show possession on
a singular noun ending
in –s] Maya and her mom often fought about
Maya’s future, and this put tension on their relationship. [Compound
sentence] When her mom
apologized about her ultimatum of getting a job or moving out, Maya
contemplated what she would do in the real-world and was searching for her
interests: “Shopping? What about fighting malevolence? Sure, there was some job
satisfaction, but…” (p. 207). [Complex sentence] In this passage, she is
expressing her fears that embracing her goddess powers would not suffice as a
career path.
At the end of the book, all of Maya’s peers and family and
community members accept her goddess duties as a full-time position. [Series of 3 items without commas and strung together with ands] In my own
opinion (which may be different from yours), it is clear Maya has embraced this
career path of being a reincarnated goddess. [Possessive pronoun: yours] Singh has done
a great job with this book in making it different from most of the other
chick-lit novels.