Palace Of Illusions

Palace of Illusions: It's the story of Mahabharata from Draupadi’s point of view.
The book started very well.
It talked about the childhood of Draupadi in very unusual and novel way; especially her relationship with her brother Dri (Dhristadryum) and Krishana.
But after say some 100 pages the book lost its initial zest.
It almost became a dragged and presumptuous narration of Mahabharata.
The author lost herself with a few assumptions that she had made. e.g.- Draupadi feels very strongly for Karna.
I mean even if that can be one of the many complex feelings in her heart. It should not become her life story I guess!
And my biggest disappointment was with the fact that Draupadi’s relationship with her husbands is totally superficial.
She is one woman who was officially married to 5 men. The book was a hope to understand what and why of her psyche in this regard. But as usual the story talked a few things about Arjuna, Bheema and Yudhisthira, but Nakul and Sahadev were hardly even mentioned.
I mean it's ok if Vyaasa didn't mention them too much as he had too many characters to talk about. But if we are talking about story of Draupadi, should she not be talking about these two men who are supposedly her husbands!
Another huge disappointment was the fact that Draupadi and Kunti’s relationship which started on a complex note was never mentioned or developed later on in the plot.
In another words novel raised the hopes really high in the beginning but never met those hopes.
Other women characters where also mentioned so briefly that it hardy told anything about women’s place in the time of Mahabharata. Gandhari, who is an extremely interesting woman, was mentioned so briefly as if she doesn’t exist.
Yet another disappointment was with the portrayal of Draupadi herself. Draupadi was not such a composed woman the way it’s portrayed in the book. She was much fiercer or else the Great War would NOT have taken place.
Here Draupadi and Kunti appear to be same person after a point with same set of dilemmas. I don’t want to reveal the plot so I will not tell much about it in detail.
Another thing, was it not Draupadi who wanted to wash her hair with Duhsashana’s blood. I mean when we talk about Draupadi we see THIS woman who was so passionate about her revenge. You will be horrified to know that incident was not even mentioned in the book.
Overall the book was a huge disappointment for me.