You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.25 AVERAGE
3.25 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A big, bold, rambling epic of the strange. An intrusion of the world of the djinn into the realm of the every day yielding a heady concoction of philosophy and myth-making typical of Rushdie's unique style. He may be controversial, but he can certainly brew a pretty irresistible effervescent narrative of curious beauty.
I brought this book with me on the road trip home for Christmas, and most it I read in the car. Parts of it I found so brilliant that I couldn't help reading aloud clever or beautiful passages to my husband. Other sections were a bit of a slog. Where they just a slog because I was trapped in a car with my family and the kids were noisy from time to time? I don't know, I wouldn't rule it out. But I found this book uneven with flashes of incandescence.
So the story is present-ish day, but with djinn, but it's told as if being written in the far future, looking back in a tumultuous period in earth's history. I suppose the effect is supposed to riff on reading One Thousand and One Nights now, looking back at a somewhat foreign point in history. I think I didn't ever really settle into this mindset, and I might enjoy going back and reading it again with that frame more fully in mind. I was reading it more as a contemporary fantasy, and I think that's where some of my struggles come from, as it just isn't structured that way. It's more episodic in nature and favorite characters just disappear. sometimes to return later, sometimes to be summarily killed off almost as footnotes.
A unique tale that makes me feel like I need to read more Rushdie.
So the story is present-ish day, but with djinn, but it's told as if being written in the far future, looking back in a tumultuous period in earth's history. I suppose the effect is supposed to riff on reading One Thousand and One Nights now, looking back at a somewhat foreign point in history. I think I didn't ever really settle into this mindset, and I might enjoy going back and reading it again with that frame more fully in mind. I was reading it more as a contemporary fantasy, and I think that's where some of my struggles come from, as it just isn't structured that way. It's more episodic in nature and favorite characters just disappear. sometimes to return later, sometimes to be summarily killed off almost as footnotes.
A unique tale that makes me feel like I need to read more Rushdie.
**GoodReads First Reads Book**
I have picked this up a few different times and gotten to various points in the book. I just cannot get into the story enough to finish it. I got about 100 pages in this time, and that is the farthest I have gotten. Maybe I will give it another shot later on.
I have picked this up a few different times and gotten to various points in the book. I just cannot get into the story enough to finish it. I got about 100 pages in this time, and that is the farthest I have gotten. Maybe I will give it another shot later on.
Nope, not happening. Nope, nope, nope. I cannot abide run-on sentences and this book already had too many by the time I reached page 11. I'm done. I'm finding something else to read.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I thought this book was fun! Some pages are a little slow (I agree with other reviewers that some of it sounds like a history book, ew), but it's usually pretty good. It's definitely not a book to be read all in one sitting, but over some time. The allusions ranged from very current to pretty old, and I appreciated the ones I understood. I liked the characters too - even though there are a lot of them - there's usually reminders when the POV switches back to a character we haven't seen in a while. It's definitely more character driven than plot driven, which is why it's best read like little vignettes almost - one or two POV per night. :)
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I started out really enjoying this book. It was really slow and took its time introducing characters. But that’s the entire book. It’s really slow. It’s not until ~70% through the book when the plot actually happens. There’s hints of it earlier but those are around a paragraph and then never mentioned again. And even the supposed climax of the book was disappointing. It seemed like the author forgot that the book needed a story and haphazardly put one together right before the deadline.
Some characters are great but some characters make the book drag on forever. The main antagonist is confusing and it’s hard to keep track of the djinn characters. Their names are interchangeable to me and I wish the book did a better job at establishing them.
I really enjoyed the first half, despite nothing happening plot wise. But I can only read about the characters daily lives for so long. It was a weird read and I don’t think I’ll be reading it again. It only has 2 stars because I really enjoyed that first half.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Death, Sexual content
Minor: Incest
Salman Rushdie's "Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights" is a gloriously funny and enthralling re-imagining of Scheherazade's 1001 Nights. Narrated by descendants from 1000 years in the future, the novel encompasses "the strangenesses" that occur during a time of unreason. As with most omniscient narrators, the text drops hints and get sidetracked, but it's hugely enjoyable and impeccably clever while it's at it.
The strangenesses are the result of dalliances with and descendants of djinn (fantastic and capricious beings made of smoke and fire) clashing with the human world, and the novel's fairy tale elements underscore the mundane agonies and delights of humanity. The result is a layered and affectionate war for the world. It's excellent for readers who like stories (even if they don't think they like fairy tales).
Netgalley Review.
The strangenesses are the result of dalliances with and descendants of djinn (fantastic and capricious beings made of smoke and fire) clashing with the human world, and the novel's fairy tale elements underscore the mundane agonies and delights of humanity. The result is a layered and affectionate war for the world. It's excellent for readers who like stories (even if they don't think they like fairy tales).
Netgalley Review.
Once upon a time, centuries ago, a jinnia calling herself Dunia fell in love with a philosopher. Over the course of the two years, eight months and twenty-eight days and nights that they were together, they had a large number of children. Unfortunately, humans don't live forever, not even philosophers. Dunia leaves our world after the death of her human lover. A thousand years or so later, a storm tears open holes between the world of the jinn and the human world, allowing malicious jinn into our world to wreak havoc. Dunia also makes her long-anticipated return to earth in order to gather her descendants so that they may fight the dark jinn and save the world. In the meantime, these descendants are waking up after the storm to find that they've developed odd abilities. There's the gardener whose feet no longer touch the ground. There's the baby that causes corrupt people to break out in festering sores. A failing graphic novel artist witnesses his creation come to life. A woman with a reputation as a gold-digger finds she can shoot lightning from her fingertips. The "strangenesses" seem random at first, but connections become apparent as the story develops. Can this disparate group of Dunia's descendants defeat the exceedingly ancient and power jinn?
This is a tale told by a future generation who are regarding this as their history. Rushdie has long been one of my favorite authors, but for one reason or another, this particular book fell somewhat flat to me. On the one hand, I absolutely enjoyed this "history" of jinn on earth and there's a certain level of playfulness in the telling of it. On the other hand, this took me forever to read, likely because it's very difficult to relate to characters as they're presented in such a manner as to avoid emotional connection. Glowing reviews of this book are everywhere, so I had very high hopes and perhaps it's the very fact that this book was so gushingly hyped that I felt a tad disappointed. It's good, but it can't beat Rushdie's classics like Midnight's Children or Satanic Verses. Anyone who tells you otherwise clearly saw something in this that I did not.
This is a tale told by a future generation who are regarding this as their history. Rushdie has long been one of my favorite authors, but for one reason or another, this particular book fell somewhat flat to me. On the one hand, I absolutely enjoyed this "history" of jinn on earth and there's a certain level of playfulness in the telling of it. On the other hand, this took me forever to read, likely because it's very difficult to relate to characters as they're presented in such a manner as to avoid emotional connection. Glowing reviews of this book are everywhere, so I had very high hopes and perhaps it's the very fact that this book was so gushingly hyped that I felt a tad disappointed. It's good, but it can't beat Rushdie's classics like Midnight's Children or Satanic Verses. Anyone who tells you otherwise clearly saw something in this that I did not.