The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Four stars



This book is really hard to classify. As a fantasy set in historical New York City perhaps it could be called Urban Fantasy but it isn't like any other Urban Fantasy I've seen. Historical Fantasy? Whatever you call it was a unique and an intriguing book. It was the BOM on several of my Goodreads groups, plus I kept reading about this book from the Nebula award nomination to numerous reviews and recommendations. It quickly became a must read.

The concept was fascinating – a fantasy with non-traditional supernatural creatures from Jewish and Arabic cultures. Not one overused werewolf or vampire to be seen.

The two title characters are the main focus of the book though there are a myriad of secondary characters woven throughout their stories culminating in a huge reveal that ties them altogether at the end.

The Golem was by far the most interesting and sympathetic character. She is a creature created by an evil (or at least unscrupulous) wizard to be the bride of an unsavory man. She is unexpectedly freed by her master’s death and her journey begins. With no experiences to draw on, she must navigate the human world and avoid destruction – and worse she must fight her own nature as a violent and destructive being. This potential terrifies her more than her own destruction as she is surprisingly moral and kind. She meets a generous Rabbi who names her Chava and she begins her journey as an immigrant in New York.

The Jinni by contrast is a selfish, self-centered, and vain creature. While Chava develops friendships and bonds with humans the Jinni (called Ahmad by the human who frees him) chaffs at everything about his current existence. He is a terrible friend and his brief ‘romance’ with a human woman is rather callous. His personality in a human body is in keeping with his mercurial origins as a fire elemental being. He feels trapped and frustrated and it shows. He has a fiery temper and a restless attention span.

The parts of the story centering on these two main characters were vivid and enthralling. The stories of the other characters woven in and around the two main characters, well, not so much. I get why she did it given the way the ending ties everyone (almost everyone) together but it didn't exactly work. It felt more like background that was put there just to build the puzzle and the solution rather than carrying the story along.

By the time I got to the end, I felt that all of it could have been skipped and still told the same story. Truth be told, I did skim most of those parts and wasn't lost at all in the end. The detailed back stories just weren't needed or interesting.

One small pet peeve in the writing style: the author constantly refers to Chava as “the golem” even after she has a name. She is rarely (if ever) referred to as Chava. With Amed, the choice to always call him ‘the Jinni’ seems little more logical; he never accepts the name given to him by the human. He did have a name among his own kind and even though he indicated that cannot be said by humans, perhaps the author could have come up with a representation of it.

It seems nit-picky, but when I saw ‘the golem’ this and “the golem’ that about a dozen per page times it tended to take me out of the story.

Overall, it was a highly entertaining read and well worth the time. Extremely imaginative characters and ideas make this a must read.

really intriguing and enjoyable!

Got to half way through and did not care to find out what happened. No thanks.