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A review by hevleary
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
5.0
This book is wonderful.
The story of The Golem and The Djinni, set mainly in 19th century New York, manages to weave fantasy, folklore and historical fiction in one brilliantly told tale. It's been a while since I read a book I felt I truly couldn't put down but this has be interested from the start.
The plot is brilliant, appropriately paced and with enough complexity to keep you interested but not enough to baffle. The character relationships are wonderful; you get to see love, lust and unlikely friendships form in a way which is very believable even though some of the characters are not human. I think the personalities of The Golem and The Djinni have been brilliantly developed and display human-like traits in a non-human way.
Watching both The Golem and The Djinni find their way in this new environment for them draws interesting parallels with immigrants to New York at that time. I was interested by the history of this area and thought Wecker painted a good picture of life for new immigrants to America. Watching Chava and Ahmad learn to fit in as humans was also fascinating and did bring up some questions about the human condition.
5* and I would recommend to anybody
The story of The Golem and The Djinni, set mainly in 19th century New York, manages to weave fantasy, folklore and historical fiction in one brilliantly told tale. It's been a while since I read a book I felt I truly couldn't put down but this has be interested from the start.
The plot is brilliant, appropriately paced and with enough complexity to keep you interested but not enough to baffle. The character relationships are wonderful; you get to see love, lust and unlikely friendships form in a way which is very believable even though some of the characters are not human. I think the personalities of The Golem and The Djinni have been brilliantly developed and display human-like traits in a non-human way.
Watching both The Golem and The Djinni find their way in this new environment for them draws interesting parallels with immigrants to New York at that time. I was interested by the history of this area and thought Wecker painted a good picture of life for new immigrants to America. Watching Chava and Ahmad learn to fit in as humans was also fascinating and did bring up some questions about the human condition.
5* and I would recommend to anybody