Djinn City

A young boy who is raised in isolation and poverty by his father in a dilapidated mansion finds out his mother was a djinn. And then A LOT happens.

I loved this, every POV had my attention, there was nothing I never could predict the trajectory of the story and I had a couple chuckles. Djinn is one of my buzzwords, especially after reading The Ghurka and the Lord of Thursday by the same author, so I nominated this for my IRL book club. The ending was...a surprise and a bit of a bummer, but not a deal breaker. Book club reception was a mix.

Recommend if you want to explore Eastern mythology, like the idea of lots of egotistical djinn, don't mind the idea of fantasy with a sci-fi twist, and want fleshed out characters but don't need a lot of depth in the character relationships.

Wait, that's it?!? Is there going to be the second book? I have so many “what about”s, I don't even know where to start. Or maybe there are a few chapters that got lost?
It was all coming together so well and at some point everything just went to hell.

I was really enjoying the book. It was captivating, with interesting characters, both hume and gjinn, with high enough stakes and evil baddies of different kinds. But the ending. Right now, after turning the last page, I feel like the author just went “OK, it's gotten too complicated, I don't know how to deal with all that stuff so it makes sense, so I'm just going to end it.”

Because Indelbed going through all those years of suffering just to let Gevaras escape and kill Juny and Barabas does not makes sense.

Because all the elder djinns being trapped in another dimension and meeting Kaikobad there and... the end - doesn't make sense. What's the point then in all the chapters where Kaikobad is looking for a way to get back to Indelbed? Just to give the reader the story of the First City? Well, firstly, it's cruel.

I have an awful feeling that these characters were just used by the author to get to some point. And I feel bad for them. They didn't deserve to be treated like that.

I feel robbed by the way things got wrapped up in the end. I'd prefer to read 100-200 more pages and see everyone's arcs complete.

A sensitivity reader could transform a fair amount. It's otherwise enveloping and droll.