This course had some of my favorite readings for any literature-based class I've had, both because I already enjoyed folklore and because I got to read novels! The Narayan versions of the epics are fun to read, and I really appreciated being able to pick my own related readings for the second half of the class and branch out into things I'd been interested in before but hadn't had time to read.
Of the novels I read, I like Divakaruni's writing and storytelling more than Arni's, but The Missing Queen is a faster-paced book, so the excitement and quickness is nice. Breaking the Bow had some really great stories. My favorites were the ones placed in futuristic settings and also those where modern women take inspiration from the Ramayana, dealing with their own personal issues and often rewriting the endings in positive ways. I think I mentioned all of my favorite stories at the time I read them in the Reading Diaries.
If anything, I would've preferred more reading and less commenting assignments. At a certain point, having to do multiple sets of comments each week started to seem more like busy work, and I would have rather spent that time reading more stories or even exploring other writings on the epics, like maybe that "300 Ramayanas" article that I never did get around to reading...
