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    Trail of Broken Wings
    Trail of Broken Wings
    Trail of Broken Wings
    Audiobook12 hours

    Trail of Broken Wings

    Written by Sejal Badani

    Narrated by Karen Peakes

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When her father falls into a coma, Indian American photographer Sonya reluctantly returns to the family she’d fled years before. Since she left home, Sonya has lived on the run, free of any ties, while her soft-spoken sister, Trisha, has created a perfect suburban life, and her ambitious sister, Marin, has built her own successful career. But as these women come together, their various methods of coping with a terrifying history can no longer hold their memories at bay.

    Buried secrets rise to the surface as their father—the victim of humiliating racism and perpetrator of horrible violence—remains unconscious. As his condition worsens, the daughters and their mother wrestle with private hopes for his survival or death, as well as their own demons and buried secrets.

    Told with forceful honesty, Trail of Broken Wings reveals the burden of shame and secrets, the toxicity of cruelty and aggression, and the exquisite, liberating power of speaking and owning truth.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMay 1, 2015
    ISBN9781501220678
    Trail of Broken Wings
    Author

    Sejal Badani

    A former attorney, Sejal Badani is the author of the bestselling novel and Goodreads Fiction Award finalist Trail of Broken Wings. When not writing, Sejal enjoys reading and traveling.

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    Reviews for Trail of Broken Wings

    4/5

    143 ratings16 reviews

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    • 5/5
      It is an extremely well written book that looks at a very complex family situation with wisdom and compassion. I'm very grateful I read it. The characters and the wisdom will stay with me for a long, long time.
    • 4/5
      Brent is a successful Indian immigrant. As far as his work and community can see, he is a loving father who is providing the American dream for his daughters. But Brent and his family are hiding a terrible secret. After he falls into a coma, his wife and their three daughters come together at his hospital bedside. Together, they must come to terms with the abuse they suffered at his hands and how it has continued to impact their lives. Beautifully written and heartbreaking, it shows how toxic and far-reaching the effects of abuse are, and how liberating it can be to stop hiding from the truth. 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. Heroes are not born or created. They become so in the passing moments of life. When something or someone demands you be more than you have been, when you must put aside your own needs and what is best for you to fight for another, no matter the cost. When an adult has been abused as a child, he or she lives life always expecting the other shoe to drop. That is because it always did. There was never a good day that did not end badly. Sadness always followed happiness, and fear always preempted confidence. A guaranteed emotional roller coaster when you are not the one in control.
    • 5/5
      I can't imagine growing up the way the characters in this book did, but the writing was beautifully painful enough to move me to tears several times.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I've ever read. Heartbreaking and shocking, but phenomenal none the less.
    • 3/5
      Although this book is melodramatic and that genre known as women's fiction, although it is once again yet another story of abuse, it did keep my interest. A man who emigrated from India lives in America with his wife and three daughters. He was not a success, and he beat and denigrated those over whom he had power, a coward's way.And of course, the family is damaged. Dearly beloved father is in a coma and the now-adult daughters are there, each with her own demons, all with secrets. This is the story of their attempt at getting on with their lives. And the story of their mother. Some of it was just too predictable.I did hate that there were a couple of references to being beaten like an animal. Even an animal shouldn't be beaten like an animal.While a bit over the top for me, I did start to care about these flawed people and what happened to them, whether they would survive.I borrowed this book through Kindle Unlimited.
    • 4/5
      Another book I found during my free month of Kindle Unlimited, Trail of Broken Wings surprised me over and over again.On the surface, it was the story of three daughters of Indian immigrants but, as is true of most good books, it was about a lot more than that.The story revolves around the patriarch of the family who's in a coma he will likely not come out of. The three daughters are about as different from one another as they could be, each responding to the cultural norms of their culture differently, and, as we quickly learn, each responding to the abusiveness of their childhoods differently.As a person who's dealt with abuse in my life, I appreciated the way the author handled this. There was a lot of nuance. There were a lot of muddled feelings, which, after reading reviews of other readers, appears to be aggravating to others. But the truth is that many people who deal with abuse don't feel one type of way about it. They feel a lot of different ways about it and they have responses to their abusers that may not make sense to other folks. The author handled this perfectly.The characters were rich and fully fleshed out. Each chapter was from a different point of view so the reader was really treated to many different perspectives. As an analysis of Indian cultural norms, abuse survivors, and American immigrants, this book was a success for me.
    • 4/5
      Sad story difficult to read but well done
    • 3/5
      Trail of Broken Wings by Sejal Badani is, if you can bear with it, a recommended tale of abuse in a dysfunctional Indian family. The individual story of their lives and abuse is told by each character in their own voice in separate chapters.

      Ranee has tried to be a good Indian wife, submitting to every wish her husband Brent voices, as well as his beatings. She knows that "the men, the father and the husband, were two sides of the same coin. Both owned you and could do with you what they wished." She and Brent have three girls, Marin, Trisha, and Sonya.

      Marin is the oldest daughter and a driven woman. Her marriage to Raj was an arranged marriage. They have a 15 year old daughter Gia. Brent beat her as a child and controlled her life.
      Trisha is the second daughter and was Brent's favorite. He never beat her and allowed her to marry the man of her choice.
      Sonya, the youngest, left her family years ago, after college. She was beaten the most and told all through her childhood that she should have been aborted. Working as a photographer, she has traveled the world and never came back to see her family.

      When their father, Brent, falls into a coma their mother, Ranee, wants her three daughters with her. Much to everyone's surprise, Sonya comes home. As each character faces the demons from their past and faces the hurts and challenges of the present day, the complete story of their lives is told and hidden motives and memories are revealed. The secret shame they all carried from their beatings is revealed along with the legacy it has left behind.

      The writing is this novel is excellent and almost lyrical at time. I can't fault the writing for my negative feelings toward Trail of Broken Wings. Not can I fault the presentation. Having the characters speak their truth and tell their story through their own voices in their chapters is very effective. It is the subject matter and all the violence toward women that is hard to stomach. I almost stopped half way through, telling myself that it was enough. I didn't need to read any more about this dysfunctional family full of misogynistic violence. I was struggling to relate to these broken women and some of their choices.

      Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from Lake Union Publishing and TLC for review purposes.

    • 5/5
      I listened to this story of abused sisters and mother and its effect on their lives. Very powerful and insightful.
    • 4/5
      When a man slips into a coma, the wife and daughters he abused are finally able to begin the healing process.
    • 4/5
      ‘Trail of Broken Wings’ seems to present an honest depiction of a family devastated by the brutality of an abusive husband and father. As the fallen patriarch lays in a coma, his daughters, Sonya, Trisha, and Marin grapple with the scars that are now affecting their own relationships as adults. Sonya, who escaped her father’s persecution, has returned home to face her persecutor. Trisha, the one most loved by her dad, has built a perfect home and life for herself, only to eventually find her life an illusion. And Marin, the family’s overachiever, cannot control her seemingly perfect world. The story juxtaposes between the different points of view of the three daughters and their mother in short chapters, which, especially at the beginning of the story, left me sometimes trying to recall which point of view I was reading. As the reader is drawn into the emotional events of the story, this problem was remedied, as it became clearer as to who these characters were.Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the characterization of this Indian family, led by an abusive father, who acculturates into American society. The story clearly shows how family dynamics, punctuated by abusiveness, can have profound, negative effects on all family members and can even transcend through generations.
    • 4/5
      Sonya, an Indian American professional photographer, has come home when she finds out her father is in a coma and is not expected to survive. Her adult life has been one of fleeing from any commitment or any one place. Her sister, Trisha, has created the "perfect" suburban life and the oldest, Marin, has built a successful business. What is told is a story of the effects of cruelty and aggression, the burden of shame, and the cleansing of speaking the truth. A powerful look at the dynamics of a family and its repercussions for each member.
    • 4/5
      3.5 A man lies in a hospital bed, he is in a coma and his physician doesn't know why or even if he will come out of it. He is a husband and a father of three daughters. Only one daughter, his favorite, and his young granddaughter wants him to live. His wife and two of his daughters were treated to physical and mental abuse, abuse that effected the way they viewed themselves, their relationships and the women they became.This is a novel that shows how abuse of these kinds last far into the future, even after they are not in the same house as the abuser. Except of course for his wife, a woman with little choice but to put up with him. The writing flows well and is narrated in turn by the daughters and their mother. It is sad a horrific, though the descriptions are not terrible graphic. It is interesting to see how they each developed different after the abuse, but none had truthful relationships with their spouses, afraid they would think less of them of their previous lives were revealed. One daughter, the youngest try to run away from her memories, ran from any personal commitments that might happen. Until the coma, when the whole family is once again reunited. I felt that at the ending of the story the author went a bit overboard in her descriptions of their reconciliation with the past. But this was a good story and a tough subject, so I applaud her for tackling it.ARC from Netgalley.
    • 4/5
      Really 3.5 stars. The book was gook but contrived in parts of the story maybe forced. I thought the family was very dysfunctional. Three sisters mourning their father who is in a coma. Their father was a very abusive man. Each sister had their issues along with the mother. Not one managed to be unscathed. Very depressing even though it end up being ok. I was like what else did or can there's girls endure.
    • 4/5
      No one on the outside ever knows what goes on under the surface of a family. A perfect façade leaves those looking in thinking that the family is in fact, if not perfect, then darn close and lucky to be there. But facades can be faked, manufactured, and can have little connection to reality. This is how abusers get away with their trade for so long. Someone has to crack the superficial lie before the horrific truth emerges into the light. This is very much the case in Sejal Badani's novel, Trail of Broken Wings, about one Indian American family and its legacy of abuse. As Brent lies in an inexplicable coma, his three daughters and his wife gather round him in what might be a show of love and devotion. In fact, they are each grappling with their long and terrifying past with the man in the hospital bed, even as they continue to maintain the careful façade they have created over the years. Trisha, the favorite daughter and the only one to escape the brutal and constant beatings, mourns the loss of her beloved father, even as she recognizes the ways he terrorized her sisters, compartmentalizing them from the loving man she knew. Oldest daughter Marin, now a mother herself, has always been driven to perfection in order to prove her worth and to hopefully forestall the beatings. Youngest daughter Sonya is the prodigal, the one who was uncertain whether she'd come home for this vigil, the one who fled her father's fists and left her family behind so long ago to photograph the world. But really there is no escape, not for Brent's daughters, not for his wife Ranee. The mental and emotional scars are forever, the long term psychological fallout for them as survivors of abuse is greater than they ever imagined, and they are all damaged. As each of the women gather at Brent's bedside, she keeps the secrets she's hidden for so long. The relationships amongst all of these women are strained by their past, their resentments, and their inability to allow anyone, even fellow sufferers, to see the full extent of their shame. Reading about these women is emotionally taxing, especially in the chapters told by Sonya in first person. The other chapters focused on her sisters and her mother are told in third person, giving them a modicum of distance that her own painful musings do not have. The story moves backwards and forwards in time, from the happier, pre-abusive times when they lived in India to the dawning frustration of life in America where Brent faced racism, marginalization, and a demeaning that he could not absorb, reflecting it instead, and then finally to the horrors he inflicted on the family who depended on him. With the coma giving his family time to decide what Brent's reckoning must ultimately be, the story is very heavy feeling and makes the reader wonder if they can possibly heal. There are some unexpected twists and turns in the story which helps when it seems as if it is going on just a bit too long but the ending itself, for several of the characters, is not entirely in keeping with the tone of the novel. After years of dragging this terrible baggage and being unable to face or acknowledge it, an ending promising so much hope seems too easy and unearned. Despite that, this is a realistic and difficult portrayal of lives in the aftermath of abuse and the ways in which silence is so much the enemy of truth and healing.
    • 4/5
      Having left home after her high school graduation, Sonya is asked to return home by her mother after her father falls into a coma. Her reunion with her mother and 2 sisters are strained. With their father lying immobile in his hospital bed, each woman has flashbacks to their individual memories of their relationship with him. These flashbacks result in some unexpected behavior as their individual coping mechanisms are tested to the limit.This story is about a family held close and yet fragmented because of unmentioned resentment, fear and love, a family who maintains a respectable front to members of the community, but who suffer horrors of abuse within the walls of their home. The results of abuse are different from each woman and it is not possible to read this without feeling yourself pulled in different directions by each of them and the situations they now find themselves in.When a horrific secret is unleashed, the women have to come together as they have never before to protect each other as much as themselves.