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The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker
Nov. 23rd, 2020 05:30 pmHistorical fantasy set in late 19th century New York, featuring a Golem woman and a Jinni man, and their experiences as immigrants and trying to find their place and who they are and what they want from life.
There were aspects of this book that I really enjoyed, and I loved reading all the Golem's sections, but overall I was frustrated with the kind of book it was, I guess? My biggest frustration is that I didn't particularly care about the Jinni, and he's one of the two main characters of the book! My other big frustration was with the plot choices made. The through-line of the semi-immortal evil wizard as the antagonist mastermind was just...idk, it didn't feel right for this book, to me. It didn't add anything to the themes the author was trying to develop, and in fact felt like a redirect of the reader's attention away from the more important and interesting aspects of the story
So although I appreciate the things the author was doing in this book (eg the depictions of community, identity, belonging, and making choices), the execution didn't work for me overall.
There were aspects of this book that I really enjoyed, and I loved reading all the Golem's sections, but overall I was frustrated with the kind of book it was, I guess? My biggest frustration is that I didn't particularly care about the Jinni, and he's one of the two main characters of the book! My other big frustration was with the plot choices made. The through-line of the semi-immortal evil wizard as the antagonist mastermind was just...idk, it didn't feel right for this book, to me. It didn't add anything to the themes the author was trying to develop, and in fact felt like a redirect of the reader's attention away from the more important and interesting aspects of the story
So although I appreciate the things the author was doing in this book (eg the depictions of community, identity, belonging, and making choices), the execution didn't work for me overall.
