A review by annie43
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

3.5

ok let me really lay this out. my opinion of this book went so up and down throughout. it felt really long to me. things about the world building i liked and things i found boring, predictability and uniqueness, tropes that i enjoyed leaning into and others that felt over the top. i liked fatma’s characterization a lot. i liked the settings and visuals, i liked her relationships. love gay. the audiobook narrator was incredible. i’d love to see this as a graphic novel just like i felt about the first novella in the series.

i should take it at face value as a romp around cairo but it also deals with some heavy issues, sometimes well and not.

i found myself agreeing with the villain a good amount in the beginning….and then i realized he’s supposed to be a villain and an imposter…so then i tried to stop agreeing and supporting him. maybe that says more about me than the story itself but i mean…..al-jahiz was making a lot of sense??? honestly the story i was telling myself in my head for the first half was a little more fun than what ended up happening. the author painted a vivid picture of inequality and suffering in the beginning and it felt like all that didn’t really go anywhere. it was actually surprisingly like, a kinda pro cop mystery. which surprised me with the tone set in the beginning. philosophically it ended up a lot flimsier in the end than i felt it was going to be.

overall there were some parts i liked a lot so im bumping slightly up from center, also to express my level of investment in the book which was a LOT i really listened and took it all in. ok thats all for my longest review ever.