Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽'s Reviews > The Golem and the Jinni

Reread in April 2021 in preparation for The Hidden Palace - the ARC is sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me, yay!

Returning to this first book after six years, I’m even more impressed with it. Upping my rating to all 5 stars!

This thoughtful, original fantasy is about an unlikely friendship between a golem (an immensely strong animated being magically formed of clay) and a jinni (genie), set mostly in 1899 New York City. Chava, the golem woman, was secretly made by a rabbi using forbidden Kabbalistic magic, to be a wife for another man, bound to obey his every command. When that man dies on the ship to America, she is at loose ends without a master, trying to decide how to live her life. She ends up living for a time with another aged rabbi, who is sympathetic toward her but uneasy with her powers of destruction.

The jinni, Ahmad, is also on the loose in New York City after a tinsmith accidentally lets him loose from the bottle that imprisoned him. But Ahmad still doesn't have all of his powers — he's involuntarily tied to a human shape, without the ability to change or become incorporeal, and he’s lost a chunk of his memories. And he very much wants his full powers back. The golem and the jinni form a tenuous friendship, despite their vast differences in their natures — earth and fire — and in their personalities and views.

I loved this book's detailed exploration of historic New York City and the lives of immigrants (especially Jewish and Syrian people) and others (a brief glimpse of the constrained life of an upper class, wealthy young woman) at the turn of the twentieth century. The pacing, for the most part, is very deliberate, even slow at times — you have to just enjoy the journey. But once the conflict really kicks in, it's pretty intense.

Very highly recommended if you like well-written historic fiction with an element of fantasy, that thoughtfully explores some deeper themes about our innate natures, our choices and desires.