The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Walker

[Sarah]

What makes us really alive? Free will? Love? The ability to make choices that go against your better nature or self-preservation, or out of passion or fear that is mixed with distance or stubbornness (because it is possible to believe two opposite things at the same time). What if it all these things at yet none of them is what makes us alive, what makes us being with the spark of thought? That is the questions that are brought forth in this novel. It doesn't necessary answer them, but they are there hanging over the novel as it shifts back and forth in time.

I read someone else's review saying that Sophia was unnecessary, and I have to agree on some level, but I also thought at times that Sophia and Anna are supposed to serve the same purpose for Amet and Chava respectively - a human that is forever changed by their interaction with each of them. The thing that separates the two is class and we see the different result for each of them because for humans money does make the world go round.

Almost all the main characters are immigrants, and as stranger in a strange land they are constantly dealing with typical (and not so typical in this book) issues of being understood, not understanding the cultural niceties of America (New York City) at the turn of the century.

I am looking forward to the sequel.