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A review by amy_trent
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
3.0
Exquisitely slow. A novel made of lots of different narratives that eventually come together at the end, but every time I got invested in one particularly character's story, we'd leave it to go to a different character's story. It slowed the pace way down and frustrated this reader. Sometimes we wouldn't even depart the narrative to pick up a different narrative thread, but just to double back for a different character's point of view of the same scene we'd just read. I'm all for a retake, but it happened too often. And the insights gained from rehashing the scene weren't pivotal or satisfying. I wanted the story to move forward! I wanted to know how all the narratives would come together. In a book with a ton of head hopping, why make us retrace our steps?
All the endearing characters were killed off, and there wasn't enough sparkle in the case of the protagonists to make me want to follow these characters into subsequent books. I read this one at the recommendation of a bookstore attendant. I wanted to scratch my steampunk itch. Historical fiction/fantasy... It sounded like something I would enjoy, and parts of it I did. The story of how the doctor became an ice cream man was good stuff. I was rooting for this character, but oh no... He died at the climax. He and Anna could have had an awesome friendship, but we needed some sort of human sacrifice to add gravitas to the ending? If you can call it an ending.
Heavy reliance on coincidence (what Jinni is going to require himself to turn human to bolt and unbolt his palace door--don't mind me, I just think this is quirky and oh no! Didn't think I'd ever be captured in my own palace!). Prose that got in the way of the story. I started skimming after getting 50% in. Characters that felt flat. And long. So long. I kept wondering about the edit process while reading it. Was this book twice the size before the editor stepped in, or did the book balloon significantly after the edit letter? I
All the endearing characters were killed off, and there wasn't enough sparkle in the case of the protagonists to make me want to follow these characters into subsequent books. I read this one at the recommendation of a bookstore attendant. I wanted to scratch my steampunk itch. Historical fiction/fantasy... It sounded like something I would enjoy, and parts of it I did. The story of how the doctor became an ice cream man was good stuff. I was rooting for this character, but oh no... He died at the climax. He and Anna could have had an awesome friendship, but we needed some sort of human sacrifice to add gravitas to the ending? If you can call it an ending.
Heavy reliance on coincidence (what Jinni is going to require himself to turn human to bolt and unbolt his palace door--don't mind me, I just think this is quirky and oh no! Didn't think I'd ever be captured in my own palace!). Prose that got in the way of the story. I started skimming after getting 50% in. Characters that felt flat. And long. So long. I kept wondering about the edit process while reading it. Was this book twice the size before the editor stepped in, or did the book balloon significantly after the edit letter? I