Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

10 reviews

asahome's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious

3.5

TL;DR: A young woman must solve a mass murder case where she discovers the supernatural is closer than she thinks. In the end, people challenge the status quo and they are not wrong when discussing the way power is distributed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Religious bigotry, Violence, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Blood, and Colonisation

Moderate: Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Slavery, Alcohol, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Cultural appropriation, Body horror, Classism, Drug use, and Gore

beepsies's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Torture, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Self harm, Racism, and Sexism

Minor: Classism, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Religious bigotry, and Slavery

novella42's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book was beautiful, the worldbuilding was excellent, the characters were multi-dimensional, their problems and responses were believable, and Clark explored social issues with nuance. I loved so much of this book!

The story began a little slow for me because I'm not into mysteries, but by the second half I was having a hard time putting it down as the pacing built more and more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Racism, Gore, Slavery, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Violence, War, Self harm, Gun violence, Murder, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Classism, Addiction, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Animal death, Misogyny, Sexism, Blood, Body horror, and Confinement

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Homophobia, War, Death of parent, Islamophobia, Hate crime, and Stalking

Minor: Kidnapping, Sexual content, Grief, Alcohol, and Death of parent

jpremmel's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Gore, Racism, Self harm, Body horror, and Colonisation

Minor: Slavery

00phantom's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, War, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Self harm

Moderate: Slavery

ha1yan's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Such a fun listen on audiobook! Suehyla El-Attar was a delightful narrator and I loved hearing their improvement throughout the book! Super fun characters and worldbuilding with many moments that had me on the edge of my seat. Some plot moments/reveals could have had more buildup. Also, I could deduce certain parts of the mystery long before the characters themselves which confused me a bit.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Racism, Self harm, Violence, Murder, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Vomit, Religious bigotry, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, Racial slurs, and Sexism

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, and Violence

Moderate: Sexism, Gun violence, Classism, Racism, Self harm, Death of parent, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, Murder, War, Xenophobia, Slavery, Body horror, Misogyny, and Gore

Minor: Alcohol, Sexual content, Stalking, Cultural appropriation, Addiction, Pedophilia, Kidnapping, and Racial slurs

Suffocation/strangulation. Smoking. Mind control/alteration, mild unreality.

thoughtsontomes's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This was an absolute delight. The world is lush and expansive. The characters and their interactions are lovable while still being flawed and realistic. There is a sapphic relationship. The mystery kept me on my toes with enough foreshadowing to be satisfying. The villain had every ability to be 2 dimensional but turned out to have some substance. Everything was tied up perfectly. I'm be not so patiently awaiting the next novel in this series. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Fire/Fire injury, and Racism

Moderate: Colonisation and Blood

leahsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. I am offering my honest opinion voluntarily.

I’ve read two of the three novellas leading up to this book to familiarize myself with this world. I was really looking forward to starting this book, but there were some things I absolutely loved and some things that I just … didn’t. 

 

Let me be clear. World building is absolutely one of the great strengths of the author. I’ve read a couple of steampunk books, but this one blew them away. Early 20th century Egypt is already an interesting setting, but then add in the steampunk elements and the fantasy/djinn aspects and the incredibly detailed descriptions and it’s just far beyond anything I could have hoped for. I had no problem visualizing everything that was depicted throughout the book. 

 

I had bonded to some of the characters in earlier novellas, like Hamed and Onsi, and only got to know Fatma a little bit. While she was the main character in this story, she had this major reputation as one of the best agents in her department. But to be honest, I just didn’t really understand why. There were so many things that she missed, overlooked, or tried to explain away, and at times, she was rash and judgmental. The bright spot in the cast of characters was definitely Hadia. While she was a little bit of a stickler for the rules, kind of like the female version of Onsi, I really liked her and the fresh point of view that she brought to the story. Plus, she’s pretty badass. 

 

There was a whole lot going on in the story. It was fast-paced and there was a lot of action, but it also felt a little … messy to me. Even the genre felt hard to put my finger on. It was fantasy, but also steampunk/sci-fi/mystery/thriller and had elements of romance. While I did enjoy the main plot, there were a lot of side plots that arose. Some of them worked with the story, but others just felt like they drew attention away from the story, and didn’t really need to be added in there. 

 

And finally, there are a ton of foreign words sprinkled throughout the story. Normally I don’t mind, especially when reading on my Kindle, since my Kindle will handily provide a definition or I can just figure it out through context. But I was sadly disappointed in this case. The vast majority of words in the story weren’t recognizable to my Kindle’s dictionary, and I couldn’t figure out what they meant through context. So my choices were to put the Kindle down at least once a page and look it up on my phone, which would take me out of the story completely, or to just power through and constantly wonder, “What, exactly, am I missing out on?” I generally picked the second choice. 

 

Overall, this wasn’t my favorite story in the series. I honestly enjoyed the novellas a lot more. I actually hope to see more of Hamed and Hadia, since those two are my favorite characters so far. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Slavery, Self harm, Racism, and Racial slurs

noreadingdegree's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)

i have read all of P. Djèlí Clark's work previous to this and was ecstatic when I saw that he was releasing his first full length novel in his alternate steampunk Cairo. I was a little apprehensive because Clark typically writes shorter fiction and I was unsure of how it would translate into a longer work. Overall, I think Clark did an outstanding job with A Master of Djinn. I find his storytelling so incredibly invigorating and refreshing. I just come to life when I read his words. The things that I think he did best in this novel were the characterizations of his female characters, exploration of queer relationships, and top notch worldbuilding. However, I felt that the mystery/detective plot line became convoluted especially towards the end of the book. This felt like it was originally another novella, but was bumped up to novel status. It felt like Clark had to fill in the gaps to boost it from 200ish pages to 400+ pages. Those parts didn't necessarily work well for me, but I still very much enjoyed the novel. Now I need a follow-up story furthering exploring Siti and Fatma's relationship!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Self harm, and Violence

Moderate: Slavery

protests with violent encounters with police force.