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What Members Thought
I added this to my to-read shelf after seeing it on the AV Club's Best of 2013 list. After reading it, my initial take is that I found it a bit underwhelming. Maybe I expected it to be more exciting? Faster paced? More charged with the clash of its disparate cultures? I'm honestly not sure. I can see why it made the best of the year list. It is beautifully written, and magical realism is a critical darling of speculative fiction.
The beginning was interesting -- the creation of the golem and her ...more
The beginning was interesting -- the creation of the golem and her ...more
I went on a long road trip and listened to this book as an audio book. It was almost perfect timing too. I only had 1 hr left on the audio when I got home. I enjoyed this audio book's narrator George Guidall. I love that he had an middle eastern accent which really brought the story alive to me. This book was really neat... including magic, romance, friendship, and much more. It takes a story that is meant to be magical... but also teaches us somethings. We learn about immigrants and what they e
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This was such a beautiful book. It is, as the title suggests, the story of a golem and a jinni. Not only are they fantastical beings trying to live among humans but it is also the ultimate immigrant story in turn of the century New York. Chava, the golem, is created as a wife to a man who dies on their voyage to New York. She is taken under the wing of a rabbi who tries to help her come to terms with her destructive nature. Ahmed, the jinni, arrive in New York via a copper bottle carried by Syri
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I liked the idea of this book, and found the characters and stories of the jinni and the golem to be very engaging. The book has a lot to say about how we construct identities, we do start with an essential nature, but how much does that rule or lives and does it leave us as not responsible for our actions? I felt like the book was heading somewhere definite, but never quite got there. I also felt like I was supposed to get some kind of moral, but never figured it out. That aside, this is a well
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Absolutely loved this book. Well-drawn characters, fascinating story, set in NYC during a historical era I've always found interesting.
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I can see why people like this, but it's not really my cup of tea. Enjoyable for what it was.
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Dec 03, 2013
Tommy
marked it as to-read
Dec 28, 2013
Julian
marked it as to-read
Feb 28, 2014
Caitlin
marked it as to-read
Apr 24, 2014
taeli
marked it as to-read
Mar 09, 2015
Jason
marked it as to-read
Aug 03, 2015
Emily
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
paranormal,
bookclub
Jan 22, 2016
Oblomov
marked it as to-read
Oct 14, 2016
StacyM
marked it as to-read
