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brassmonkey's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Body horror, Violence, Murder, and Confinement
Moderate: Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Medical content, and Sexism
Minor: Blood, Grief, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, and Adult/minor relationship
kell_xavi's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
This book was unlike anything I’ve read before, but in this case, it wasn’t a plus. Wecker’s writing is expansive, reflective, intricate in nature; the plot of the novel was both more epic in scale and more concerned with minutiae than I expected, and the duality of these elements makes for a drawn-out tale, a little like the layers of the thousand and one nights, where pieces spin out of focus and back to the centre. Every character is important, though many of them aren’t obviously relevant or terribly interesting from my perspective.
I appreciated the story for its careful mapping of New York City through the eyes of immigrants coming to understand, make a home, and find independence in an unfamiliar, growing city. Wecker has great empathy for these characters: for the multitude of reasons that people may travel; the social, cultural, and economic positions they inhabit; the things they recall from other countries, bring with them, and find to comfort and satisfy in the new land. The spiritual characterizations were folded into the setting with skill, and also showed confrontation with the new, though for the Jinni and Golem, there was more to learn and adapt to.
I was drawn to the Golem and Mahmoud Saleh especially. The Golem is painted with a deferent desire to please others, coupled with a struggle to make a full picture of others’ minds beyond their strongest impulses; the balance of social sensitivity and difficulty with social cues was familiar to my neurodivergent way of seeing, as were other events, like Chava’s fear of her own mind, lack of interest in many normative interactions, and her curious experimentation with her body. Saleh, I viewed as an interesting model for depressive mentality—I liked seeing a sick mind without having competing theories about depression or possession, but I also liked seeing some symptoms, notably passive suicidal ideation, difficulty with people, and greyness to the world, show up as marks of a possessed mind. I also liked Myram as a constant and a symbol of Little Syria.
I didn’t like Sophia’s, Shaalman’s, or Anna’s roles in the narrative, and I would have liked a smaller-scale story, one that stayed closer to the titular characters. The historical theory was a drag on the close character study that I anticipated, and I found the dramatic twists increasingly tiresome and not to my liking as they built up and up towards the conclusion.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Pregnancy, Violence, and Adult/minor relationship
poetskings's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Antisemitism, Death, Murder, and Adult/minor relationship
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